Love in the time of profit? Honda-GM affair over cheap EVs comes to zilch

If you have been saving money for an affordable electric vehicle (EV) born from the partnership between Honda and General Motors, don't. That's because the two companies are reportedly abandoning efforts to work on such a model or models because it may not make much business sense.

Honda and GM had announced that the brands would combine efforts in order to work on EVs that would make use of next-gen Ultium battery tech and would be more affordable than what's on offer at present. The April 2022 announcement created quite a bit of buzz in markets across the world, possibly signalling a very serious challenge to the global dominance of Tesla. But fast forward 18 months and it just isn't panning out.

Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe blames ‘changing business environment’ for the decision to scrap efforts for such a model with GM. “After studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business, so at the moment we are ending development of an affordable EV," he told Bloomberg Television. "GM and Honda will search for a solution separately. This project itself has been cancelled."

GM, meanwhile, has already announced that it will go easy on its EV production in North America ‘to protect pricing.’ The American car maker, instead, wants to focus on improving existing products and make new engineering updates.

The initial Honda-GM plans for an affordable range of EVs envisioned models that would be under $30,000 (approximately ₹25 lakh). This is the price point of the Chevrolet Equinox EV but even production of this model has been pushed back. Meanwhile, Honda has showcased its Prologue electric SUV which will be its first all-electric model for North America. The Prologue SUV makes use of GM’s Ultium platform and once launched, is expected to be priced upwards of $40,000 (approximately ₹33 lakh).