GM and Honda have deepened their partnership to develop electric vehicles, selling “millions” of affordable crossover SUVs in early 2027, carmakers said at a joint news conference on Tuesday.
“By working together, we will place people from all over the world on EV as quickly as a company can achieve on its own,” GM CEO Mary Barra said in a statement issued before the press conference.
The companies will build a new global architecture based on GM’s next-generation Ultium battery technology, focused on reducing costs.
Every automaker believes that mass production of affordable electric vehicles for the global market is important for GM to achieve its stated goal of carbon neutrality by 2040 and for Honda to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. According to the statement, the broad partnership works on the strengths existing within each company to reduce costs, improve performance and enhance sustainability.
GM brings the knowledge to work with new technologies for lithium-metal, silicon, and solid-state batteries, as well as a more flexible manufacturing process to accommodate EV development.
Honda brings its promise to mass production of solid-state batteries, which have high power density and small packaging. Many analysts believe that solid-state batteries will be the near future of electric vehicle technology.
Honda President and CEO Toshihiro Mebe said in a statement, “Honda and GM will build on our successful technology collaboration to help dramatically expand the sales of electric vehicles.
The existing partnership dates back nearly a decade to 2013, when the two automakers began collaborating on hydrogen fuel-cell technology. By 2018, Honda had agreed to buy battery modules for electric vehicles from GM, who established the technology with Chevy Bolt. In 2020, the first two electric vehicles built in North America at the GM factory using Honda GM’s Ultium battery technology are planned for 2024, including the Honda Prologue electric crossover and an unspecified Acura model.
The companies are specifically targeting the compact crossover segment, currently the most popular segment in North America by volume. The GM 2024 went so far as to target the Chevy Equinox EV and an entry-level electric crossover priced at less than its reported starting price of $ 30,000.
Doug Parks, GM’s executive vice president in a statement.