Roughly ⅔ of all Honda cars will be electrified in some way by 2030, going by recent comments made by the company’s President and CEO Takahiro Hachigo.
It should be noted here that the comment clearly refers to hybrids (and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles) as well as plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and all-electrics (EVs) — so those expecting ⅔ of Honda’s offerings to be EVs by 2030 clearly aren’t going to get their wish. It should probably also be noted here that 2030 is actually only 14 years away….
Of course, considering that these comments were made by a CEO, there were some qualifiers used — “around 2030” and “strive” being the most notable ones.
Considering that EV battery prices are likely to be relatively low by that point, the news shouldn’t be surprising — it’ll likely almost be a necessity by 2030 for automakers to offer substantial electric options if they want to stay in the game.
Green Car Congress provides more info:
Hachigo said that Honda will will position plug-in hybrids at the core of electrification in the future and will introduce an all-new plug-in hybrid model in North America by 2018. After that, Honda will make a plug-in hybrid type available for the major models and increase the number of models sequentially.
Honda will begin sales in Japan of the Clarity Fuel Cell in March 2016. The next-generation fuel cell system which is being developed jointly with General Motors will move on to the next stage that includes production and purchasing, aiming at a product launch around 2020.
On the motorcycle front, Honda will introduce the EV-CUB, a mass-production model developed based on the EV-CUB Concept electric motorcycle, to the Japanese market about 2 years from now, and then subsequently in main ASEAN countries, which has been the largest market for the Honda Cub Series.
Good news all around. I’m curious to see what kind of specs the PHEV model bound for the US market will have.