Honda Is the Latest Automaker Looking To Build a US Battery Factory (arstechnica.com) 30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: North American lithium-ion battery production is set to soar over the next decade. The Biden administration and Congress have both put policies in place to incentivize domestic manufacturing over imports, and startups, battery companies, and automakers are responding. Honda and LG Energy Solutions are the most recent to make moves; on Monday morning, the companies announced that they are forming a $4.4 billion joint venture to build a US battery factory. "Our joint venture with Honda, which has significant brand reputation, is yet another milestone in our mid- to long-term strategy of promoting electrification in the fast-growing North American market," said Youngsoo Kwon, CEO of LG Energy Solution. "Since our ultimate goal is to earn our valued customers' trust and respect, we aspire to position ourselves as a leading battery innovator, working with Honda in achieving its core initiatives for electrification, as well as providing sustainable energy solutions to discerning end consumers."
2025 is when Honda and LG are targeting mass production at this newest joint venture. It's too soon for them to have finalized a site for this factory, but the companies say they plan to begin construction early next year. The battery factory will make pouch cells, with an annual capacity of 40 GWh. "Honda is working toward our target to realize carbon neutrality for all products and corporate activities the company is involved in by 2050," said Toshihiro Mibe, president and CEO of Honda Motor Company. "Aligned with our longstanding commitment to build products close to the customer, Honda is committed to the local procurement of EV batteries which is a critical component of EVs. This initiative in the US with LGES, the leading global battery manufacturer, will be part of such a Honda approach."
2025 is when Honda and LG are targeting mass production at this newest joint venture. It's too soon for them to have finalized a site for this factory, but the companies say they plan to begin construction early next year. The battery factory will make pouch cells, with an annual capacity of 40 GWh. "Honda is working toward our target to realize carbon neutrality for all products and corporate activities the company is involved in by 2050," said Toshihiro Mibe, president and CEO of Honda Motor Company. "Aligned with our longstanding commitment to build products close to the customer, Honda is committed to the local procurement of EV batteries which is a critical component of EVs. This initiative in the US with LGES, the leading global battery manufacturer, will be part of such a Honda approach."
Oh, look... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh, look... (Score:5, Interesting)
> You can't implement long term solutions with subsidies.
First of all, of course you can. You can do it as long as your heart desires to do it. It has a cost, but there is no growing cost. We subsidize all sorts of things, from home mortgages, to milk, to roads, and thousands of other things.
More importantly, the idea is to increase the size of the market to spur innovation and reduce costs through economies of scale. And it's been working splendidly, better than anyone ever imagined, with an absolutely massive, rapid, and breathtaking fall in prices for wind, CSP, and photovoltaics. No one could have ever dreamt up a better result than we've seen over the past 20 years of international subsidies. In just the past 10 years, the levelized cost of electricity from photovoltaics has fallen by 70%.
You really need to examine how you formulated an opinion so wildly wrong, because what you've written is just so incredibly wrong, you need to go examine the media you're consuming and how you managed to get things so backwards.
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In Honda's case they have one EV on the market, the Honda e. It's a great little car, best HMI of any vehicle on the market. It's battery is relatively small though, only 35kWh (about 28kWh usable) and was made by Panasonic. They could have used Korean or Chinese batteries for bigger models, but I think a lot of auto-makers are concerned about becoming dependent on others for battery supply and for warranty issues. If there turns out to be a manufacturing or design problem with the pack, it gets messy. They
The problem with the US is (Score:2)
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Those people were going to leave the market anyway for demographic reasons. At most, Covid sped that up by a couple years.
Most people who weren't planning to retire soon can't just leave the job market. There's some wiggle room with couples, but in large part, Boomers are simply reaching the age where they naturally retire.
The prime working age (25-54) employment-population ratio is now back to 82.4%, very near it's pre-pandemic peak, which itself was near the peak since 2001.
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Re:The problem with the US is (Score:4, Interesting)
We don't need to do either of those things. What we need to do is institute a living minimum wage. If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, it would be $24/hour by now. And the minimum wage was explicitly stated to be a living wage at the time of its inception. It literally should be that high.
Every one of you saying "we can't do that" is either profiting from the situation, or you're just enabling your own abuse. At the time when America was said to be "great" the maximum graduated tax rate was 90%. If that was what "make america great again" meant, I would be all for it. That's what it would really mean, if it were honest.
You capitalist whores are so predictable (Score:2)
You: Capitalism works great
Me: This is how it's failing
You: *downmod*
Society: *fail*
You: Victory!
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They aren't building anything (Score:2)
The only person in the world who can ever make electric cars is Elon Musk. If people buy electric cars, Tesla will make trillions of dollars. That's why Tesla, a company that makes less than 1% of the cars, is currently valued at nearly a trillion dollars - more than the top 10 automakers all combined.
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I appreciate the snark but honestly Honda doesn't really make EVs.
They have the "Honda e" which is not (and will never be) available in North America. It's their first and only EV launched in 2020. Problem is it's very expensive for what it is; Starting at â34K it's 50% more expensive than the Nissan LEAF but has less range and utility. It's not a car they ever intended to seriously market, and they don't have another EV planned until 2024 at the earliest.
In fact Japan as a whole is really dragging the
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They still make the LEAF but it's not available with a liquid-cooled battery which is mind blowing.
I agree, but on the other hand they seem to have solved their battery life problems somehow anyway...
The Japanese automotive industry is gonna lose to Korea and China the same way the US automotive industry lost to Japan in the 1980s and 1990s.
First China has to get to the point where the best EVs made in China aren't made by Tesla. Korea's tendency for every car they build to be a serious fire risk isn't heartening, either.
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The LEAF's battery is significantly improved yeah, but DCFC is still absolutely kneecapped without active cooling - Hypothetical 100KW max but most Chademo chargers are 50KW, and you're lucky to get half that on a hot day. At least they're finally giving up on Chademo in favor of CCS in MY2023. It's a good thing they're so inexpensive because otherwise it would be a terrible value.
As for China... they're already there, man. "Best" is a little subjective but vehicles like the Arcfox Alpha-S and the Aiways U5
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vehicles like the Arcfox Alpha-S and the Aiways U5 are strong competition. BYD's Han and Seal are targeted to be direct Tesla competitors.
Any teardown videos? Reviews by someone other than corporate PR or the government?
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Everyone's favorite Norwegian EV guy reviews and drives the Aiways U5 [youtube.com]
And that video led me to this one [youtube.com] where a group takes it around Nurburgring pretty much flat out.
Which in turn led me to the same guy's review of the Arcfox [youtube.com] on a closed track, with some bonus experimental features since it's a test platform vehicle.
Here's a Filipino reviewer [youtube.com] going over the BYD Han in the standard, boring fashion. Reliable reviews of the Seal are harder to come by since they're not on the streets yet (preorders have been de
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Looks relatively reasonable, now all that has to happen is find out if they will hold up to use or not.
Re: Electric cars are a band aid (Score:2)
Being able to shopping without a car is nice, but employment is rarely near your home and public transport will never ever stop sucking.
You can of course force the peons onto public transport with costs only the rich can afford, the peons can of course build guillotines.
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> Building more battery production facilities for electric cars is just a pollution transfer of tailpipe emissions.
The up-front environmental cost for EV manufacturing is paid back in 25,000 miles or less [iop.org] versus ICE vehicles, which pollute far more over their useful life. This of course only gets better as our electricity mix gets greener.
> Suburban sprawl is an infrastructure and climate disaster that continues to be ignored, swept under the rug, or bailed out with massive Ãoeinfrastructure
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Here's the thing too; even if we had perfect public transit/walkable cities, we'd still need an extensive and nation-wide network of highways and inner-city roadways to move stuff from where it's made to where it's used.
We could replace all interstates with rail, or at least reduce their width to single lanes. We could replace most lesser roads with PRT. Start where the gains are greatest, work your way towards everywhere else. We do NOT need anywhere NEAR the road network we have now. It was a deliberate choice.
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Building more battery production facilities for electric cars is just a pollution transfer of tailpipe emissions.
False. Even when charged purely from coal, which is not the case anywhere in the world, EVs have lower lifecycle emissions than ICEVs. Weird you chose this blatant falsehood to prefix the rest of your comment, which was pretty good.
Electric motorbikes from Honda? (Score:2)
I for one am still waiting for electric motorbikes - not scooters - from Honda. In the motorbike space, they have the brand-name that Toyota used to have for cars - i.e. reliable, good value bikes. I'd appreciate them to bring on electric models, as I consider a motorbike an excellent means for commuting, and charging a removable battery (Honda has standardized such with some other companies) at home or even at the office is not an issue. Range is not much of an issue, even if I'd appreciate enough for a sh
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I for one am still waiting for electric motorbikes - not scooters - from Honda.
Buy a Zero. I've been watching them literally since the beginning when they were using bicycle parts. What they have now is a race winner [twitter.com]. You could wait years for Honda to catch up, though.
Full disclosure, I know Kenyon, and another friend of mine used to be the QA manager at Zero.
Why? Shortage of materials, among other issues. (Score:1)
Why build a battery factory when there is a problem of mining enough lithium, cobalt, and so many other minerals for making batteries and the lightweight motors for EVs? Do they believe the minerals will be imported? Aren't other nations also looking for these same raw materials? What happens if the hostilities in Ukraine spread and we have greater disruption of the movement of goods internationally? Do the people at Honda expect there to be more mining in the USA? Maybe Canada or Mexico? Materials fr
Solves the NIMBY issue (Score:2)