Honda Motor has begun the construction of an electric-vehicle (EV) factory with local partner GAC Motor Co. in the south China city of Guangzhou.
The project is part of the Japanese automaker’s plan to ramp up EV production in China by adding one dedicated EV plant at each of its two local joint ventures.
The 3.49 billion-yuan ($520 million) EV factory is slated to begin output in 2024 with initial annual capacity of 120,000 EVs, Honda’s China office said this week.
In January, Honda signed an agreement with local partner Dongfeng Motor Group to construct a similar EV factory in the central China city of Wuhan.
The Wuhan EV factory is also scheduled to start production in 2024 with initial annual capacity of 120,000 EVs.
Honda recently launched China sales of the first two locally produced models developed on a new EV platform known as the e:N Architecture F. Both vehicles are compact crossovers.
In April, the e: NS1, assembled at Dongfeng-Honda, went on sale in China.
The two electric crossovers have the same starting price, 175,000 yuan, after government subsidies.
Starting with e: NS1 and e:NP1, Honda plans to roll out ten e: N Series EV models in China by 2027.
Honda’s China sales slumped 19 percent to 538,085 in the first five months of 2022. In 2021, its local deliveries dipped 4 percent to around 1.6 million.
