Honda Motor Co. said Tuesday it will launch 30 electric vehicle models globally by 2030 and spend about 8 trillion yen ($63 billion) on research and development over the next 10 years.
Honda said it will try to achieve an annual output of over 2 million EV units by 2030 as it accelerates efforts to increase the ratio of electric and fuel-cell vehicles to 100 percent of its overall new car sales by 2040.
Amid intensifying global competition, Honda said it will invest 43 billion yen to build a demonstration line in Tochigi Prefecture for the production of all-solid-state batteries, a key component in making batteries safer and giving vehicles greater range, with the goal of making it operational in the spring of 2024.
Honda President Toshihiro Mibe said in a presentation at the company's headquarters in Tokyo that the automaker will allocate approximately 5 trillion yen in the area of electrification and software technologies.
The 30 new EV models that Honda aims to launch by 2030 will be a full lineup of vehicles ranging from minivehicles for commercial use to high value-added flagship models, it said.
In Japan, the automaker expects to introduce in early 2024 an EV-model minivehicle priced at around 1 million yen.
The automaker plans to launch 10 models by 2027 in China, where it plans to build dedicated EV plants in Guangzhou and Wuhan. In North America, the automaker will introduce two models currently being jointly developed with General Motors Co. by 2024.
"We need to reduce the costs by doing whatever we can," Mibe, who became president roughly a year ago, said of the EV development.
The announcement comes as Honda is stepping up forming partnerships in the EV business.
Honda said last month it will join hands with Sony Group Corp. in producing electric vehicles. The two will set up a new company later this year and start selling EVs in 2025.
Earlier this month, Honda and GM said they will expand their tie-up to include the joint development of a series of affordable EVs, starting sales in North America in 2027.
Honda becomes the latest Japanese automaker to release a new EV business plan, following global peers in the face of the increasing need for zero-emission vehicles to achieve carbon neutrality.
Toyota Motor Corp., the world's No. 1 carmaker by volume, has said it will invest 8 trillion yen by 2030 with a global EV sales target of 3.5 million units that year.
Nissan Motor Co. plans to spend 2 trillion yen on electrification by fiscal 2026.
