Honda joins electric vehicle push
Honda Motor Co. will start selling a battery-powered car in 2012, curbing the skepticism about such vehicles that made it the last of Japan’s largest automakers to enter the market for rechargeable autos.
Quote from the article:
| Japan’s second-largest automaker follows rivals Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. in planning plug-in models and battery-powered cars as governments tighten emissions rules, and as inadequate infrastructure hampers popularization of the hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles favored by Honda. A zero-emission vehicle rule in California is forcing Honda to make the move to electric cars, which the carmaker still considers suitable only for short-distance drives. “My predecessor didn’t like batteries,” Ito said, referring to former President Takeo Fukui. “But we have been researching them all along. Since I became president, that was accelerated quite a bit.” In California, the most populous U.S. state, the largest carmakers by volume must sell about 60,000 plug-in hybrids and electric cars combined from model years 2012 through 2014, according to the state’s Air Resources Board. “There’s tremendous pressure being put on, in California and nationwide by the Obama administration, to offer these advanced vehicles,” said Jim Hossack, an industry analyst at AutoPacific Inc. in Fountain Valley, California. “Every major manufacturer is going to have to play ball. U.S. fuel-economy rules that phase in after 2015 make the addition of plug-ins and hybrids inevitable,” Hossack said. |
Source: Honda joins electric vehicle push
