Bloomberg says that Honda and General Motors will no longer work together on a line of cheap small SUVs. Honda said it was because of rising project costs, the state of the business, and the fact that it took a lot of work to get a good driving range. Even though this plan to work together was turned down, Honda says that the two companies will “search for a solution separately.” It’s easy to make vows but even more accessible to break them. Honda and General Motors announced in April of last year that they would be working together on a line of small crossover SUVs with next-generation batteries that would go on sale in 2027. Bloomberg says that Honda has ended the planned partnership with GM, which had been in the works for 1.5 years. “After studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business,” said Toshihiro Mibe, the CEO of Honda. “We decided that this would be hard as a business.” The decision was made as a result of the shifts that were occurring in the economy. Honda said the program was canceled because it was too expensive and complicated to get the right amount of driving range. GM said earlier this week that it will need more time to meet its initial profit goal of $14 billion in 2023. The company said this was because of the United Auto Workers strike. The first plan was to make a new platform based on GM’s Ultium battery, which powers the GMC Hummer EV, the BrightDrop electric cars, and the Chevy Equinox EV. It will cost less than the planned $30,000 base-spec Equinox EV, and the companies said they were looking into solid-state batteries and how to use materials like silicon and lithium-metal. Honda and GM may still develop some electric cars that cost around $30,000 soon. Mibe also said, “Now that the joint efforts have stopped, GM and Honda will look for a solution separately.” However, since each company works independently, these cars may be ready after 2027. The split won’t affect the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX release, which use Ultium battery technology and are powered by GM. These cars are linked to the Chevy Blazer EV and Cadillac Lyriq. We still think that deliveries of Prologue and ZDX will start in early 2024.
