Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co., Ltd. (Dongfeng Honda), a Honda automobile production and sales joint venture in China, held a ceremony to commemorate the start of operation of its new energy vehicle (NEV) production plant in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China.
The ceremony was attended by a number of guests and executives including representatives of Wuhan City and Hubei Province governments; Yang Qing, Chairman of Dongfeng Motor Corporation; Toshihiro Mibe, Global CEO of Honda; and Masayuki Igarashi, Managing Executive Officer of Honda and Chief Officer in charge of Regional Operations (China).
The Dongfeng Honda NEV production plant is the first dedicated Honda electric vehicle (EV) production plant in the world to begin operations. A highly efficient EV production line was realized by increasing the level of automation, mainly in the assembly process, and also by integrating quality and various operational data obtained in each process within the plant. Moreover, through the introduction of a multi-level automated warehouse and automation of parts logistics, this plant became the first Honda plant in the world to completely eliminate logistics personnel in the stamping process.
As for environmentally-responsible features, the overall energy consumption of the plant was reduced through various measures including the reduction of electricity use with the adoption of an efficient daylighting layout, as well as the utilization of thermal energy generated during production for heating systems and other purposes. In addition, through the real-time monitoring of the energy consumption of each process within the plant, excess electricity consumption will be reduced depending on the situation. Furthermore, Dongfeng Honda will strive to further reduce the plant’s environmental footprint by linking the respective data on each process and optimizing overall power consumption, while minimizing the impact on production.
Honda has set a global environmental goal of “realizing carbon neutrality for all products and corporate activities Honda is involved in by 2050.”
In China, Honda is planning to introduce a total of 10 Honda-brand EV models by 2027, including models for the e:N Series launched in 2022, as well as the Ye Series, a next-generation EV series Honda unveiled in April 2024. With these EV models, Honda is aiming to achieve 100% EV sales in China by 2035.
