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Honda CEO joins push for plug-in models
TOKYO–Honda will start selling a battery-powered car in 2012, curbing the skepticism about such vehicles that made it the last of Japan’s largest automakers to enter the market for rechargeable autos.
Honda also plans to sell mid-size to large plug-in hybrids in Japan and the U.S. in 2012, Chief Executive Officer Takanobu Ito told reporters here this week.
Japan’s second-largest automaker follows rivals Toyota and Nissan in planning plug-in models and battery-powered cars as governments tighten emissions rules, and as inadequate infrastructure hampers popularization of the hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles favoured by Honda. A zero-emission vehicle rule in California is forcing Honda to make the move to electric cars, which the carmaker still considers suitable only for short-distance drives.
“My predecessor didn’t like batteries,” Ito said, referring to former President Takeo Fukui. “But we have been researching them all along. Since I became president, that was accelerated quite a bit.”
In California, the most populous U.S. state, the largest carmakers by volume must sell about 60,000 plug-in hybrids and electric cars combined from model years 2012 through 2014, according to the state’s Air Resources Board.
“There’s tremendous pressure being put on, in California and nationwide by the Obama administration, to offer these advanced vehicles,” said Jim Hossack, an industry analyst at AutoPacific Inc. in Fountain Valley, California. “Every major manufacturer is going to have to play ball.”
U.S. fuel-economy rules that phase in after 2015 make the addition of plug-ins and hybrids inevitable, Hossack said.
Nissan, Japan’s third-largest automaker, will sell its lithium-ion battery-powered Leaf hatchback late this year in Japan, the U.S. and Europe.
Toyota will start selling a short-distance pure electric car and plug-in hybrid by 2012.
Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn predicts electric vehicles will account for 10 per cent of global car sales by 2020. By contrast, Ito said yesterday electric cars won’t reach a mass-market level of demand in 20 or even 30 years and that plug-in hybrids are more “realistic” in the shorter term.
Pure electric cars will make up 0.63 per cent of global car production in 2016, or about 600,000 vehicles, according to a forecast by consulting company IHS Automotive.
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