Honda Motor Company has been collaborating with other car manufacturers left and right. Back in October, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with fellow Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Corporation aimed at creating new businesses en route to carbon neutrality.
Now, the two companies have announced that they will officially establish a 50/50 joint venture that will be called Altna by July 2024. The new company’s goal is to optimize EV usage cost, improve the lifetime value of batteries as well as resource circulation within Japan, and accommodate the increasing demand for adjustment capacities through grid-storage batteries to increase the proportion of renewable energy in Japan’s energy mix.
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At the moment, Honda and Mitsubishi are lining up Altna to conduct three new businesses: battery leasing, battery repurposing, and smart charging.
Altna will offer lease plans starting with the N-Van. Altna will be able to retain ownership of the batteries of leased vehicles and monitor their usage during the lease period. This will allow the company to continuously collect data and enhance the reliability of the battery measured by various parameters.
When the batteries reach the end of their life cycles, they will then be repurposed and used as grid-storage batteries. Through this business, Altna will also be able to ensure proper recycling of end-of-life batteries.
As for the smart charging business, Altna will offer EV charging plans that ultimately help EV users avoid charging during peak hours. “Through the linkage between its energy control system and customers’ EVs, charging will be automatically performed at the time of day when the procurement cost of electricity is lowest according to their vehicle usage schedule.”
“With an eye toward the future popularization of EVs, Honda is working toward the establishment of a vertically-integrated EV value chain that includes all aspects of EV business, from the procurement of raw materials to the production of finished EVs, as well as the repurposing and recycling of EV batteries,” said Honda director, president, and representative executive officer Toshihiro Mibe. “We are very pleased to establish a new company with MC, which has deep knowledge of electric power business and shares our aspiration to realize a decarbonized society.”
“We are pleased to be working with Honda, which boasts outstanding technological capabilities and is committed to the realization of resource circulation. With its business model to integrate mobility, energy, services and data, our new joint venture will take on challenges to introduce a new scheme that separates the ownership of the vehicle and battery of a single EV unit,” said MC director, president, and CEO Katsuya Nakanishi. “Working toward the realization of a carbon-neutral society through societal implementation of EVs, we will leverage MC’s broad range of industrial contacts and business expertise and continue to work on the establishment of cross-industrial business models.”
“Altna will be established with a mission to create solutions that maximize the lifetime value of limited resources and the efficiency of renewable energy utilization in order to enable people and the global environment to coexist for generations to come. Together with various partners, we will provide alternative options for a new future,” said the soon-to-be Altna representative director, president, and CEO Seiichi Fukui.
