JAPAN’S Honda Motor pledged to double its electrification and software investment to about US$65 billion over the 10 years running through the 2030 business year, it said on Thursday (May 16).
Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe told a press conference the automaker planned to spend a total of 10 trillion yen (S$87.1 billion) on electrification and software over the period, doubling the amount it had pledged in April 2022.
Honda, which has been a relative late comer to electric vehicles, first had to assure it could reliably procure batteries and achieve cost reductions and performance improvements for them before focusing on software-defined vehicles, Mibe said.
“As for strengthening software development, we realised the amount we had settled on two years ago was simply not enough, so we significantly increased that portion,” Mibe said, following a presentation that mostly focused on hardware improvements.
Honda unveiled plans last month to invest US$11 billion in new EV and battery production plants alongside its existing facilities in Ontario, Canada, as it gears up for expansion in the North American market. REUTERS
