Honda today held a press conference on the hydrogen energy business strategic plan. Honda said that in order to achieve a carbon-neutral society, it will not only promote the transformation of product electrification but also actively expand the application of hydrogen energy as an energy carrier and develop the hydrogen energy business.
Honda noted that the company has been working on research and development of hydrogen energy technology and fuel cell vehicles (FCEV) for more than 30 years ago. Since 2013, Honda has also been working with General Motors to develop a new generation of fuel cell systems.
Honda said FCEVs equipped with the next-generation fuel cell system jointly developed with GM will be available in North America and Japan in 2024. The new-generation fuel cell system applies innovative materials to the electrodes, improves the cell sealing structure, simplifies the auxiliary structure, increases productivity, and durability and reduces costs.
In addition, Honda has positioned four major areas of fuel cell vehicles, commercial vehicles, stationary power, and construction machinery as core application areas for fuel cell systems and is actively working with other companies. In particular, in the field of commercial vehicles, Honda is working with Isuzu Motors Corporation to research fuel cell heavy-duty trucks and with Dongfeng Motor Group Co. to start the technical verification of the next-generation fuel cell system in the commercial vehicle field.
It is worth mentioning that Honda plans to start selling 2,000 fuel cell systems to the public each year in the mid-2020s, gradually expanding sales to 60,000 units per year by 2030 and hundreds of thousands of units per year by the latter half of the 2030s.
