Ambitious targets being set, too.
Japanese carmaker Honda has inked a deal with Chinese battery production behemoth Contemporary Amperex Technology (or CATL), to jointly develop what it reckons will be a segment-dominating electric hatchback, built off the bones of the existing Honda Jazz. The Japanese party reckons that this EV hatch will play a key role in its global strategy.
The project that Honda and CATL will undertake mostly surrounds the development of the battery & related technology for the new electric car, which the Nikkei Asian Review says will debut in the Chinese market during the first half of 2020. This will feed China’s growing appetite for electric vehicles, which is already the largest such market in the world.
The goal is to develop an electric car that’s affordable, with a speculated price somewhere around $24k in our money (or US$18k). At that price point, the Honda-CATL EV will be geared mostly towards city driving, with a relatively small battery and a driving range of about 300km per charge.
Honda presently has hybrid vehicles in its lineup that are a product of a joint-venture it has with Panasonic and GS Yuasa. Despite the new tie-up with CATL, Honda says it will maintain its relationship with the two Japanese companies, though they also said that they hope to work with CATL on future electric cars.
CATL also supplies batteries to Nissan & Renault, as well as the Beijing Automotive Group and Geely. CATL has enjoyed huge success off the back of Beijing’s EV push, as well as previous policy that made it challenging foreign players like LG Chem and Samsung SDI, pioneers in the auto-battery space, to break into the enormous Chinese market.
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