General Motors and Honda are going to develop two EVs together. The cars use American engineering, but both get a Honda look and feel.
You read that correctly: both cars will be sold exclusively as Honda. Of course GM also releases models on this platform, but these will not be direct twin brothers of the new Honda models. Those who cannot wait to drive the newcomers will be disappointed, because it seems that the unspecified models will only be sold in North America. They are also built there and must be available from model year 2024. That means that if everything goes well in 2023 they will be in showrooms.
The chassis and electric drivetrain are entirely from GM, but Honda is responsible for the ex and interior of the cars. Even the driving behavior is ‘given its own character’ by the Japanese experts.
The new “Honda’s” not only use General Motors undercarriage and drivetrain, but also borrow the Onstar system that we knew here in Opel’s GM days. Honda hides the service under the banner of its own HondaLink, so here too the borrowed technology is hardly noticeable. Finally, a version of General Motors’ far-reaching driver assistance disappears in the new ‘Japanese’. That system is hardly known in Europe, but in the US GM is participating in the premier division with Cadillacs SuperCruise in this area. Honda and GM previously announced a partnership in this area.
The basis of the new electric vehicles is a new EV platform that was announced last month. Based on this platform, General Motors wants to build a new Chevrolet Bolt and a premium SUV from Cadillac, among others.
At the same time, GM promised a new type of battery, the so-called Ultium batteries. According to the Americans, these are unique in that they have a very flexible shape, which should make it easier to get rid of them in a passenger car. Yet “The General” does not keep this novelty to itself either, because they just get the cars sold as Honda.
Incidentally, Honda and GM are certainly no strangers to each other. In the now deleted section ‘De Tweeling’, an interaction between the two was regularly discussed. We saw the Daewoo Arcadia, but also the Honda Horizon and Acura SLX.