Honda has introduced that it’s going to produce an all-new hydrogen gasoline cell electrical car (FCEV) model of the brand new Honda CR-V crossover SUV at its Efficiency Manufacturing Heart (PMC) in Marysville, Ohio. Manufacturing of the inexperienced machine will begin in 2024 after Honda concludes manufacturing of its imply machine, the Acura NSX tremendous sports activities automotive on the plant.
The shift from the hybrid NSX to the hydrogen CR-V is emblematic of the corporate’s introduced purpose to make battery electrical automobiles (BEVs) and FCEVs symbolize one hundred pc of its world auto gross sales by 2040.
Whereas BEVs have gained important technical and gross sales momentum, they nonetheless stay unsuitable for a sizeable portion of the driving inhabitants due to vary limitations mixed with recharging time, as we skilled throughout a current BEV street journey with the GMC Hummer EV.
This new CR-V-based FCEV is the primary manufacturing car in North America that mixes a plug-in battery driving functionality with FCEV expertise to let the motive force cost the onboard battery to ship EV driving round city with the flexibleness of quick hydrogen refueling for longer journeys. It’s the hydrogen gasoline cell equal of the plug-in hybrid-electric automobiles at present in the marketplace that present added driving vary by burning gasoline.
“Honda established our purpose to understand carbon neutrality by 2050 and the whole electrification of our car lineup by 2040 is essential to reaching it,” stated Gary Robinson, vp of Auto Planning & Technique for American Honda Motor Co., Inc. “As we speed up our plan to provide Honda battery EVs in the US, we additionally will start low quantity manufacturing of gasoline cell electrical automobiles there to additional discover their nice potential as a part of a sustainable transportation future.”
The Honda CR-V’s underhood gasoline cell stack.
The PMC is ideal for manufacturing of a low-volume specialty mannequin with distinctive manufacturing necessities as a result of it was conceived as a small-volume, specialty manufacturing facility that focuses on the craftsmanship of hand-assembled automobiles. Honda says that this makes the PMC uniquely suited to the manufacturing of high-quality FCEVs, which require particular meeting procedures.
“This facility is ideal for manufacturing of a brand new Honda gasoline cell electrical car, as our small-volume functionality permits us to actually leverage the ability and experience of our staff to provide high quality zero-emission automobiles right here in North America,” stated PMC plant chief Gail Might.
Honda gasoline cell expertise milestones embody:
- Honda FCX was the primary EPA- and CARB-certified fuel-cell car (July 2002)
- FCX was the world’s first manufacturing fuel-cell car, launched to the U.S. and Japan (December 2002)
- First fuel-cell car to begin and function in sub-freezing temperatures (2003)
- First fuel-cell car leased to a person buyer (July 2005)
- First producer to construct and produce a devoted fuel-cell car (FCX Readability) on a manufacturing line particularly made for fuel-cell automobiles (2008)
- First automaker to create a fuel-cell car vendor community (2008)
- Honda entered right into a long-term collaborative settlement with Common Motors to co-develop the next-generation of fuel-cell techniques and hydrogen storage applied sciences (June 2013)
- As the subsequent development of Honda FCEVs, Honda launched the Honda Readability Gasoline Cell (April 2017)
- Honda and GM introduced a three way partnership (Gasoline Cell Techniques Manufacturing) working towards mass manufacturing of lower-cost, compact, and high-performance gasoline cell techniques (2017)
