A new report from autonews.com says that a Honda electric SUV will roll out of the GM plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico from 2023. This model should be one of the two Honda EVs co-developed with GM announced in April 2020.
A possibility is that the new Honda electric SUV mentioned above turns out to be a Honda CR-V EV. A report from bestcarweb.jp in November 2020 had said that the next-gen Honda CR-V will have a pure electric variant co-developed with GM. The Honda EVs co-developed with GM would be based on GM’s third-gen EV platform and featuring its Ultium batteries that were confirmed in April 2020. Their design of their exterior and interior would be created in-house, though.
Previously, it was being speculated that at least one of the two Honda EVs co-developed with GM would be a crossover-SUV called Honda Trailsport. Honda had filed a trademark application for the name ‘Trailsport’ in the USA on 18 June 2020, and so, it was said that this could be one of the names in consideration for a future SUV.
Honda, the hybrid vehicle expert, currently sells just 4 electric cars currently – the Honda e hatchback in Europe and the Honda HR-V-based Everus VE-1, Honda X-NV, and Honda M-NV in China. It has several global chart-toppers powered by petrol engines, including the CR-V, HR-V, Civic, and Accord.
The sales of the new EVs from the joint venture are expected to begin in the American and Canadian markets in the 2024 model year. Collaboration between GM and Honda is not new as both the brands have been working fuel cells and the electric shared self-driving vehicle, Cruise Origin. In 2018, Honda also started to work on GM’s battery module development.
Executive Vice President of American Honda Motor Co., Inc, Rick Schostek has said that apart from strengthening both brands, this relationship will help the companies to be efficient in scale and manufacturing. Both GM and Honda are already engaged in talks for possibilities of extending their partnership. According to Doug Parks, GM Executive Vice President of Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, the partnership will deliver a profitable EV business with increased scale and capacity utilization.
Honda will also incorporate GM’s OnStar safety & security services into the jointly developed electric vehicles, featuring them in the HondaLink system that connects users’ smartphones with the car’s infotainment. The companies stated that Honda will make GM’s hands-free advanced driver-assist tech available on the cars.
GM had revealed its latest battery, the Ultium, and a third-generation EV platform in June last year. The Ultium batteries can be had in the range of 50 kWh to 200 kWh, with a maximum range of up to 640 km. The batteries have been designed for Level 2 and DC fast charging with 400V battery packs supporting up to 200 kW fast-charging and the 800V battery packs supporting up to 350 kW fast-charging. GM’s platform can deliver as much as 400 miles of travel range with a 0-60 mph acceleration time of about 3 seconds.
GM’s new EV platform gets a modular architecture and is suited for a wide range of cars, SUVs, crossovers, trucks and commercial vehicles. The platform can also accommodate motors for front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive, all-wheel-drive and performance-oriented vehicles.
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