HONDA DETAILS PLANS TO SELL ELECTRIC VEHICLES ONLY IN NORTH AMERICA BY 2040

Sat 24 April 2021:

Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe announced that the Japanese automaker aims to bring the company’s electric vehicle (EV) sales in North America to 100% by 2040.

The announcement comes amid a wave of auto manufacturers ramping up plans to electrify their fleets, as rising climate fears and global market trends have made electrification the industry’s path forward.

“Honda today announced key targets for sales of electrified vehicles in North America, with a plan to make battery-electric and fuel cell electric vehicles to represent 100% of its vehicle sales by 2040,” a press release, issued by the company on Friday, reads.

According to Honda, the company is aiming to bring the total number of their electric vehicle sales in North America to 40% by 2030, to 80% by 2035 and then to 100% by 2040.

The decision came in an announcement by Mibe outlining all of the company’s new global and regional targets as part of its renewed commitment to advances in safety and environmental technology.

“In making the announcement, Mibe said that Honda sees the reduction of the company’s environmental impact and realization of safety advances to protect human lives as the two major challenges facing the company,” the press release said.

The announcement comes the day after President Joe Biden announced a new goal to reduce U.S. emissions by at least 50% from 2005 levels by the end of the decade, more than doubling previous goals set by former President Barack Obama. It also comes the day after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced Japan would seek to cut emissions by 46% by 2030.

In addition, the automaker is aiming to achieve carbon neutrality for all manufactured products and corporate activities by 2050 and zero traffic collision fatalities involving Honda vehicles globally by 2050.

Moreover, from the second half of the 2020s, the company will launch a series of new EV models based on a new e:Arcitecture, a completely new electric battery platform led by Honda. These models will be first introduced in North America and then globally.

“Due to regional differences such as the level of customer acceptance, readiness of infrastructure and availability of renewable energy, it is difficult to adopt a singular approach to the popularization of electrified vehicles globally,” the company said.

Honda has the lowest CO2 emissions of any full-line automaker in the United States and the highest fleet average economy and will become the first Japanese automaker to stop selling petrol-only vehicles as an attempt to contribute to the global fight in combatting climate change.