Honda is bringing electric cars to the US, with modular platform allowing bigger vehicles

Honda is releasing its first electric car that was built to be electric from the ground up this year, but it is only for the European market.

Now the Japanese automaker says that it is coming to the US with electric cars through a new platform that allows bigger vehicles. But it may take some time.

Honda is already selling the Clarity EV in the US, but it’s an unpopular compliance car.

We have been reporting on the launch of the Honda E in Europe, which is a more appealing all-electric city car, but the automaker doesn’t plan to release in the US — at least for now.

However, Honda still plans to bring more all-electric vehicles to the US.

Those vehicles should be bigger than what Honda is planning for electric vehicles in Europe.

Tetsuya Hasebe, general manager and chief engineer of Honda’s electric vehicle development division, said (via Auto News):

It has a different aim from the Honda E. This one aims for intercity, long-distance travel.

It would mean a longer range than the Honda E.

Honda recently revealed its 35.5 kWh lithium-ion battery, along with Honda e’s 50:50 weight distribution. The company says the car will be capable of charging to 80% in 30 minutes, and it’ll have a 200 km (125 mile) range.

It is meant as a city car.

For the US, the Japanese automaker is planning a modular platform that will enable bigger battery packs, longer range, and bigger vehicles.

Ayumu Matsuo, Honda’s managing officer in charge of power unit development, said:

This new architecture is designed to achieve smooth driving and highly efficient packaging. We believe it will meet the needs of customers who like our C-segment and D-segment models.

They are planning for a skateboard-like platform design, which has become the standard in the industry, and it will support both RWD and AWD variants as well as being battery cell agnostic.

The ability to use different battery cells from different suppliers will enable Honda to manufacture the new electric vehicles at factories around the world using different battery suppliers.

Honda aims to bring the new electric vehicle platform to production before 2025.

Electrek’s Take

Honestly, this sounds like something most other electric automakers are already doing, and Honda seems late to the game with a “before 2025” timeline.

However, if they are planning for significant production volumes and achieve economy of scale by leveraging the modular platform to produce several different models, they could still have a change by beating the competition on price, as they did in the past.

I think Honda is currently far behind in the transition to electric vehicles, but I wouldn’t count them out just yet.