Photo: Honda
Being competitive is hard in the automotive industry, more so when it comes to passenger cars. In addition to closing the Swindon assembly plant, Honda announced that it’s planning to reduce global production costs by 10 percent by 2025 compared with 2018 levels.
In addition to this strategy, the Honda Architecture will further cut costs and development time. Chief executive officer Takahiro Hachigo expects the modular platform “to reduce the total number of variations at the trim and option levels for our global models to one-third."
This simplification by means of the Honda Architecture also translates to 30 percent fewer man-hours of product development according to the head honcho. The automaker from Japan wants to reinvest that time into research and development, areas of utmost importance for the time being considering that Honda is accelerating the EV program.
No fewer than two-thirds of global sales are expected to be electrified by 2030, and the Honda e will spearhead the electric revolution. The Clarity, by comparison, has seen limited success given the starting price of $33,400 for the plug-in hybrid, hydrogen fueling infrastructure for the fuel-cell model, and 89-mile range of the electric option.
“We will expand the application of our two-motor hybrid system to the entire lineup of Honda vehicles,” added Hachigo, including mid-size models such as the Pilot three-row crossover. At the other end of the spectrum, a different two-motor hybrid system has been developed for the next generation of the Jazz (a.k.a. Fit) subcompact hatchback.
Japan’s third automaker isn’t alone in this struggle. Toyota is also trying to cut costs wherever possible, a problem that puts pressure on chief financial officer Koji Kobayashi. Given how large Toyota and Honda are, there’s no denying that both of them will see this matter through.
Care to guess what else can Honda do in order to increase efficiencies? The answer is “eliminating and consolidating some similar regional models into even more competent models shared across multiple regions.”
This simplification by means of the Honda Architecture also translates to 30 percent fewer man-hours of product development according to the head honcho. The automaker from Japan wants to reinvest that time into research and development, areas of utmost importance for the time being considering that Honda is accelerating the EV program.
No fewer than two-thirds of global sales are expected to be electrified by 2030, and the Honda e will spearhead the electric revolution. The Clarity, by comparison, has seen limited success given the starting price of $33,400 for the plug-in hybrid, hydrogen fueling infrastructure for the fuel-cell model, and 89-mile range of the electric option.
“We will expand the application of our two-motor hybrid system to the entire lineup of Honda vehicles,” added Hachigo, including mid-size models such as the Pilot three-row crossover. At the other end of the spectrum, a different two-motor hybrid system has been developed for the next generation of the Jazz (a.k.a. Fit) subcompact hatchback.
Japan’s third automaker isn’t alone in this struggle. Toyota is also trying to cut costs wherever possible, a problem that puts pressure on chief financial officer Koji Kobayashi. Given how large Toyota and Honda are, there’s no denying that both of them will see this matter through.
Care to guess what else can Honda do in order to increase efficiencies? The answer is “eliminating and consolidating some similar regional models into even more competent models shared across multiple regions.”
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