Readers with long memories will recall General Motors and Honda shacked up back in the ‘90s for product sharing when the Big H found itself sans SUV and The General wanted a minivan for its Isuzu showrooms. Toss in an engine program which saw Honda V6 power under the hood of a Saturn Vue (of all things) and there’s no shortage of history between these two major marques.
That relationship now continues into the EV age. The companies have announced they will co-develop “affordable EVs” aimed at popular segments of our market. What’s the timeline? Don’t hold your breath – unless you can do so for about five years.
GM and Honda say they are working together to enable the global production of “millions” of EVs starting in 2027. Given market tastes, this effort will obviously include compact crossover vehicles leveraging the technology and design prowess of these two companies – not to mention their sourcing strategies. You can bet there will be a standardization of equipment and processes but don’t expect a simple rebadge job like the Isuzu Oasis and original Honda Passport.
Efforts like this are usually undertaken to try and drive down costs. With electrification lurking around every corner, OEMs are finding some strange bedfellows to help navigate this era in which the manner in which our cars are propelled is changing rapidly. GM has sunk untold riches into its Ultium platform, so it’ll be interesting to see if it freely shares that particular basket of toys. For its part, Honda is said to be making strides in its solid-state battery technology. Top brass sees this tech as a core element of its future EVs, going so far as to establish a demonstration line in Japan for all-solid-state batteries. This is assisting in marching the technology toward mass production.
“GM and Honda will share our best technology, design and manufacturing strategies to deliver affordable and desirable EVs on a global scale, including our key markets in North America, South America and China,” said Mary Barra, GM chair and CEO. On the other side of the table, Toshihiro Mibe, Honda president & CEO, said “Honda and GM will build on our successful technology collaboration to help achieve a dramatic expansion in the sales of electric vehicles.”
Honda and GM have been working on battery collabs since 2018. We’ll take this opportunity to remind all hands that Honda’s first all-electric crossover, called the Prologue, will be the first of two EVs built by General Motors for Honda Motor Company (an Acura-branded variant will follow). Ultium battery tech was mentioned above, and one will find those gubbins in the Prologue and its snazzy sister. The rigs are promised for the 2024 calendar year.
[Image: GM/Honda]
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How about a Honda badged Hummer called the HoHum?
Such a partnership says that neither company believes it has the volume to compete on their own.
I can hardly see this partnership lasting until 2027, let alone for years after that. Since this airplane won’t fly on just one wing, separation will be painful.
I’d say this argument is true for Honda, but not for GM.
My guess is that Honda isn’t 100% sold that EVs are “the future” (this company’s been selling a hydrogen-powered car, after all), so they may be hedging their bets by letting someone else go to the expense of developing EV tech.
Meanwhile, this is a different channel GM can use to sell its’ EV tech.
Sounds like a win-win for both companies.
“Such a partnership says that neither company believes it has the volume to compete on their own.”
Does it? Automakers partner like this all the time. BMW and Toyota have had a technical partnership since 2013. Ditto Mazda and Fiat, and Toyota and Subaru. Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
Low Volume Sports Car
Supra
124 Spider
BRZ
When the production costs of an EV are cut by 1/3rd compared to ICE, why wouldn’t you?
“When the production costs of an EV are cut by 1/3rd compared to ICE, why wouldn’t you?”
I’m not sure who is claiming that.
Reasons to avoid such partnerships:
1. You don’t control your own destiny.
2. You become dependent on the partnership for its survival.
3. Sales volume imbalances between rival brands leaves both partners wondering why they’re still in the agreement, but for different reasons.
If your analysis is correct this is a tad bit shocking for what passes for GM who have been on the bandwagon to nowhere for over a decade in various forms.
Yeah . . . in the EV world this is like Sears partnering up with KMart. After 25 years GM has yet to demonstrate that they can produce EVs reliably at scale (for a single model outside of China have they ever had a production run of 30,000 EVs or plug in hybrid cars in a single model year?) and Honda doesn’t seem to grasp the implications of EVs on their business model (pretty much anyone can produce an EV that offers low cost of ownership and requires minimal trips to the dealership. No one cares how friendly the dealership staff is if they don’t have to go to the dealership in the first place). Incrementally implementing revolutionary technology does not seem like a winning strategy.
More obviously, from 1993 Honda bought Isuzu Rodeos and sold them as the Honda Passport SUV. Took 7 or 8 years years for the first Pilot to appear. GM had its fangs into Isuzu at the time, such a successful partnership up till then that Isuzu stopped making cars altogether and concentrated on SUVs from 1993.
The detuned 250 hp J35 V6 that GM bought from Honda to shovel in some Vues was a decade after that. It bridged the gap from the hoarse old OHV V6s made in China and their upcoming Super Duper High Technology V6, a bog-standard DOHC V6 that GM Holden in Australia claims to have designed first. The thrice modified version of the original is what GM sells today.
Anyway, this Honda/GM partnership on EVs was first announced years ago, surely. Battery tech in 2018, and those two new EV vehicles in 2020, one a Honda Prologue, the other the same thing in Acura. So today’s announcement is hardly a revelation unless one’s automotive attention span and memory is short. I’d bet that’s the case here.
Remember. Ford and GM are sharing VW EV platforms. Really, Ford’s buying rolling VW chassis and sticking their bodies on them, primarily for Europe where Ford can hardly get out of its own way in the marketplace. Remember that deal?
That China engine was robust after coolant leaks of the 90° V6’s. A guy that retired last year had close to 300,000 miles on his 2005 Equinox and was fighting the rust.
It makes an incredible amount of sense to sit out the dawn of the EV age and have someone build your EV (powertrains or in this case entire vehicles). As stated in the article, untold billions are going into the development of these vehicles. There are probably dozens of companies spending insane amounts of money trying to strike gold in this new market. There will be winners and losers. Why not ride on the coattails of another company. You can switch suppliers in a product cycle or two if one tech shoots to the top, save untold billions while still taking part.
Same is true for self driving technology. So many companies spending untold fortunes developing their own tech (or just stealing it like Uber). In both of these races, the company, or companies, that produces the standard will essentially will be able to print money. Think of it as the Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook ecosystems. Facebook is failing because it doesnt control the ecosystem and is falling over itself trying to create the next big ecosystem in AI, AR, VR so it can have the power to capture the market like Google, Apple, Amazon. If GM hits on the predominant EV tech and Self Driving tech, a large portion of the industry will be paying to play in its walled garden.
This is an admission by Honda that it cannot win this war. But as suggested in the comments, they may have their own moonshot in another competing technology like Hydrogen.
The way I read it, I think these are the possibilities here:
1) Honda sees “the future” as hydrogen-based (and in fact has a hydrogen-fueled car in production) versus EV-based, so it’s hedging its’ bets.
2) Honda realizes its’ bet on hydrogen tech was a bad one, and has missed the boat on EV, so it needs to buy the tech from GM until it can develop its’ own.
Either way, I think it serves both companies.
When one is late inviting someone to the prom, one ends up dancing with the least desirable individuals.
You’d be surprised how often the “hot girl” isn’t asked because everyone assumes she’ll just say no.
Don’t forget that Honda already has hybrid cars. Was this totally done in-house? Does the technology get them part of the way to EV?
This is Honda using GM’s new Ultium EV platform. Honda has already said that they will have a CUV/SUV built on this platform soon. The new plan is talking about volume production of lower cost EV’s on the same platform.
Honda doesn’t really have their own EV technology. They did some half-hearted hybrids and a small EU-only EV but that is it. They are also talking to Sony about their “platform” but that sounds like smoke and mirrors from both companies.
Check out ‘Downfall: The Case Against Boeing’ on Netflix. Weirdly, the documentary seems to imply that Boeing’s merger with McDonnell Douglas affected the way Boeing did business. (Head-scratcher, that.)
Seems like a model that current and past Hyundai/Kia/Isuzu/Suzuki/Daewoo/Mitsubishi owners might want. I just can’t see VW, Toyota, Honda, or Mazda owners being attracted to it.
It’s not an attractive car but it’s a bargain with those specs at that price and with that warranty.