Honda Motor Co. and LG Energy Solution announced Oct. 11 a joint-venture plan to invest up to $4.4 billion to build electric-vehicle batteries in Fayette County, Ohio, creating 2,200 jobs.
The plant will produce pouch-type lithium batteries with 40 gigawatt-hours of annual production capacity. Construction is set to begin in early 2023 with production starting by the end of 2025.
Honda said it is investing an additional $700 million to prepare other plants in Ohio for the EV transformation, including its assembly plants in in East Liberty and Marysville. Honda has been making vehicles in Ohio since 1982 and the automaker’s plants have the capacity to produce 680,000 vehicles, 1.18 million engines and 1 million transmissions annually.
By comparison, Honda’s Alabama plant has the capacity to produce 340,000 vehicles and engines annually in Lincoln.
But that doesn’t mean that Ohio’s gain is Alabama’s loss.
In an expanded statement, Bob Nelson, executive vice president of Corporate Services for American Honda Motor Co., said just as Ohio was the first and now the largest for internal combustion engine vehicles in the U.S., it made sense that they would be the first for Honda’s North American EV push.
“But we aren’t only going to build EVs and batteries in Ohio,” Nelson said. “As we looked at how to take on the challenge of EV production in North America, it became clear that the experience, expertise and the resources we have established in Ohio should serve as the starting point for the rollout of EV production throughout North America in the coming years.”
Honda has said it plans for all of its vehicles to be battery electric vehicles (BEVs) or fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) by 2040. What the company learns in Ohio is expected to be applied at its other manufacturing operations, Nelson said.
“So, we are establishing a new EV hub that will leverage the experience of our Ohio associates in areas including production, purchasing and product development,” he said. “This will create the expertise for EV production that we will share with our other Honda auto plants in the region. Eventually, all our auto plants will play an important role as we pursue electrification.”
No timetable for that rollout was presented and the Alabama plant was not singled out in Nelson’s comments. In addition to Ohio and Alabama, Honda produces vehicles in Indiana and transmissions in Georgia. The automaker also operates auto plants in Canada and Mexico.
Honda has invested $2 billion in Alabama, where it began production in 2001. The plant currently produces the Honda Odyssey minivan, the Pilot and Passport SUVs and the Ridgeline pickup, along with the V-6 engines that power them.
“Our Alabama plant is vitally important to Honda and this is just the first step in Honda’s overall electrification transformation in North America toward our vision of making 100% of our vehicles BEVs or FCEVs by 2040,” said Samantha Davis, spokeswoman for the Alabama plant with Honda North American Corporate Communications. “Based on this new investment, our operations in Ohio will play a key role as a new EV hub, that will develop the know-how and expertise in EV production that we will then share across our entire North American auto production operations in the coming years.”
(Courtesy of Alabama NewsCenter)
