Honda Motor Co., Ltd

Honda Motor Co., Ltd was founded in 1948.

The founder is Soichiro Honda.

The main area of ​ ​ activity is the production of products:

• cars,
• motorcycles,
• electric generators,
• motor pumps,
• lawn mowers.

In Russia, represented by Honda Motor RUS LLC.

Performance indicators

2024: Honda closes production in China as nobody needs its cars there

2023: 7th largest car sales in the world

2021: Number of cars filed - 4,456,728

The largest suppliers in terms of the number of cars sold in 2021

2020

Global Motorcycle Market Share - 33.5%

Honda's share of the global motorcycle market was 33.5% (according to Yamaha). Read more here.

Honda Motor capitalization for November

Capitalization of car manufacturers for November 2020

History

2024

Steering falls off in 2m Honda cars

On October 9, 2024, Honda announced the recall of approximately 2 million cars due to steering problems. The revealed defect increases the risk of road accidents. Read more here

Toyota, Mazda, Yamaha, Honda and Suzuki used special software to falsify car safety data

Japan's biggest automakers Toyota, Mazda, Yamaha, Honda and Suzuki used specialized software to falsify crash tests and other car safety tests. This was announced on June 4, 2024 by the Ministry of Transport of Japan, publishing the preliminary results of a large-scale audit of the activities of local auto concerns. Read more here.

2022

Updated electrification plan

Honda did not stay away from global electrification and presented its development plan. electric transport It is complex and multi-stage, although many of its stages were announced in advance. Until 2032, Honda intends to invest five trillion yen (39.8 billion) in electrification, dollars of which 3.5 trillion will go to the development of "iron," and 1.5 trillion - to. software The total investments development of updated products over the same period will amount to eight trillion yen (63.7 billion). dollars This became known on April 12, 2022.

At the first stage, Honda divided the development of the electric car program into three main sales markets - North America, China and Japan. For two years now, an alliance with General Motors has been working in the United States: the American side is developing two electric vehicles with Ultium batteries for Honda. The Honda Prologue crossover and its Acura-branded counterpart will appear in 2024 and will only be sold in America. For the Chinese market, Honda, together with local partners (Dongfeng and GAC), is preparing a separate range of electric vehicles: new factories will be built in Wuhan and Guangzhou, ten electric models will be released by 2027. CATL will supply batteries.

In parallel, Honda is developing fully independent electric vehicles mainly for the Japanese market. Already in the first half of 2024, an electric microcar will appear at a price of about 1 million yen ($8,000) for commercial use - taxis, car sharing and delivery services. Later, a similar machine will be offered to private traders. Batteries for these electric vehicles will be supplied by Envision AESC (a joint venture of Nissan, NEC and Tokin). DID NOT include in the text - By 2026, Honda e: Architecture's own modular platform for a wide range of electric vehicles will be ready, its first child will be a mid-size crossover. The development is carried out by the Business Development Operations division, which also oversees hydrogen projects, a system for quickly changing traction batteries and the creation of solid-state batteries. By the spring of 2024, Honda promises to launch a test production of such batteries, which will cost 43 billion yen ($342 million). Finally, from 2027, Honda and GM plan to start co-producing affordable electric vehicles in North America, South America and China. By 2030, Honda expects to have 30 electric models in the global range, and their production volume should reach two million units per year. In this large family there is a place for two sports cars at once, which are now shown on the title teaser. So far, it is only known that one of these cars will become the flagship of the lineup, that is, it will take the place of the current Honda/Acura NSX hybrid. No details about the design and timing of the release have yet^[1].

Sony and Honda have created a company to jointly develop electric vehicles

On March 4, 2022, Japanese Sony and Honda announced the creation of a company for the joint development of electric vehicles. The launch of its first electric car as part of the Sony Honda Mobility project is scheduled for 2025. Read more here.

2021

More than 2,000 staff laid off as they switch to electric vehicles

In early August 2021, more than 2,000 Honda Motor employees filed applications for early retirement as the Japanese automaker restructures its staff to prepare to produce more electric vehicles. The move for Honda is the latest in a trend by automakers to abandon the production and sale of internal combustion engines.

These employees make up about 5% of all Honda's full-time staff in Japan. The early retirement scheme is open to those aged 55 to 63 and offers a package of up to three years of pay in addition to the pension benefit.

Although Honda did not set a goal, the number of applications significantly exceeded the initial estimate of 1000. This is the first time in 10 years that Honda has offered an early retirement package. About half of applicants are under 60 this time around, and some have already retired at the end of July 2021.

Honda fires more than 2 thousand employees due to the transition to electric vehicles

The move for Honda is part of a plan to reduce reliance on older employees as the company accelerates the development of electrification and autonomous driving in general. In the long term, the early retirement program will reduce fixed costs and improve production margins as R&D costs rise with the transition to electric vehicles.

In April 2021, the company announced that it plans to sell only new electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles by 2040. The automaker sees young workers as a means to achieve their goals, especially valuable personnel are considered those applicants who are better guided in new technologies.

From August 2021 to March 2022, Honda is expected to register emergency severance costs of ¥20 billion. Despite this, the company on August 4, 2021 revised its forecast for annual net profit to ¥670 billion ($611 million) for the year ending March 2022, which is 2% more than in 2020. Although sales in the United States and other markets are growing, operating profit margins in the company's main automotive business remained weak in 2020 at only 1%.

Honda has been implementing structural reforms in recent years, such as closing factories in Japan and abroad. At the end of March 2021, the company and its subsidiaries employed 40,000 employees in Japan, not counting temporary and part-time employees.

Until 2024, the company is expected to open an early retirement program, the age limit of which will be set at 59 years.^[2]

Plan to stop production of cars with a gasoline engine by 2040

In June 2021, Honda Motor Co. became the first Japanese automaker to publicly announce its intention to stop selling gasoline-powered vehicles altogether by 2040.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and companies that are the first to gain an advantage will be able to capture market share.

The country's electric vehicle usage rate is 1%, far lower than China, the world's largest electric vehicle market, where the rate is around 6%.

Honda's electric strategy also includes its traditional strong side - motorcycles. Honda plans to introduce three new electric motorcycles by 2024, as well as 10 new electric vehicles in China over five years.

US and Canada plant shutdown due to chip shortage

In mid-March 2021, Honda plants in the United States and Canada stopped production due to supply chain problems. The work of auto assembly enterprises was disrupted in January 2021 due to a shortage of semiconductor components. Then Honda Motor was forced to reduce the volume of car production in North America, but since the situation has not yet corrected, from March 22, the company will completely stop five enterprises in this region for a week.

A spokesman confirmed that most plants will stop production, and a number of others will not work in full force. According to the spokesman, the company's employees "will still be able to work at the affected enterprises," there will be no layoffs.

Honda shut down all U.S. and Canadian plants amid chip shortages

The global shortage of semiconductor components is not the only adverse factor affecting Honda Motor's operations. The company is forced to suspend the assembly of cars due to problems with the supply of components from Asia - ports on the west coast of the United States cannot cope with the load.

We continue to address a number of supply chain issues related to the impact of COVID-19, congestion at various ports, lack of microchips and severe winter weather in recent months. Our procurement and production departments are working to limit the negative consequences. We adjust production as needed to carefully monitor available parts supplies and meet the needs of our customers, the spokesperson said.

A Honda spokesman added that "the timing and duration of adjustments related to production at these plants may change," but Honda Motor teams are working hard to address the supply chain issue.^[3]

2020

Honda recalls 608,000 cars due to defective software that leads to reboot of on-board computers

In early August 2020, Honda recalls 608 thousand cars due to defective software, which leads to a reboot of on-board computers. In addition, software errors can lead to a failure of the backup camera and the display. The recall campaign kicks off on September 23. Read more here.

Ransomware virus attack and production shutdown

On June 9, 2020, Honda announced a halt in the production of cars and motorcycles around the world after the company survived a cyber attack.

Honda managed to quickly restore the work of some factories, but the company's main plant in Ohio (USA), as well as production facilities in Turkey, India and Brazil, remain idle by 17:00 Moscow time on June 9, 2020, a company spokesman told Reuters. According to him, Honda was forced to freeze enterprises to ensure the safety of the quality control system.

A cyber attack on Honda disabled the IT system at three factories. Car production stopped

The company said the ransomware virus attacked servers and hit Honda's production systems. As the Japanese television channel NHK clarifies, as a result of the cyber attack, the system for registering information about car inspections at three factories of the company completely failed. A number of other systems were also disabled, including a corporate mail server.

After the virus entered the IT infrastructure, Honda isolated its network and launched an investigation into what happened. The company says it is not aware of any breach of customer or employee data as a result of the hacker attack.

As a precaution, Honda staff were advised to forgo the use of work computers and, if possible, take a paid day off on June 9, 2020.^[4]

According to the Financial Times, Honda has become another company affected by hackers, whose activity has greatly increased amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The difficult epidemiological situation in the world forced hundreds of thousands of employees to work from home, while they part use computers with unprotected access to the home Wi-Fi network. Honda said that the recorded cyber attack is not related to the remote work of employees.

2019: Data of one million Honda car owners in the public domain

In mid-December 2019, the data of a million Honda car owners were in the public domain, and for the second time in a year. The automaker claims that this is a much smaller leak.

According to cybersecurity specialist Bob Diachenko, the company's confidential information was found in an unsecured Elasticsearch database. In total, the database contains 976 million records, and at least a million of them relate to Honda owners and their vehicles. It turned out that the Elasticsearch database was not protected by a password or another authentication system, so any user could view the full names of car owners, their email addresses, vehicle identification numbers, agreement identification numbers and other car information.

Data of one million Honda car owners were in the public domain, and for the second time in a year

Honda confirmed the personal data breach but claims the database contained records of just 26,000 customers. Honda also stressed that neither debit and credit card details nor any credentials or financial details of the company's customers were publicly available. However, whatever the volume of the leak, the reappearance of confidential information from Honda car owners suggests data protection problems in the company itself. Experts believe that it is time for Honda management to leave excuses and move on to stronger measures.

The fact is that one of the most common reasons for the leakage of confidential information in 2019 was unprotected databases, "explained cybersecurity expert Chris DeRamus. - Many users who are not familiar with security settings easily create databases or change configurations, but their carelessness leads to serious information leaks.

The information of Honda car owners has been in the open database for more than a week, so cybercriminals have had enough time for preparatory work, which can lead to a number of phishing attacks.^[5]

2017

Development of self-driving cars

In December 2017, it became known about Honda's intentions to develop its own unmanned vehicle. The Japanese company chose the Chinese SenseTime as a partner in this project. The agreement between Honda and SenseTime is designed for five years. By 2020, companies plan to present a jointly created self-driving machine. Nothing has been reported about her alleged characteristics. See Honda Autopilot for more details.

Creation of electric cars with charging in 15 minutes

In early November 2017, the Japanese automaker Honda Motor announced its intention to solve one of the main problems hindering the mass introduction of electric vehicles. By 2022, the company plans to release electric cars, which will take only 15 minutes to charge batteries, Nikkei reports.^[6] See Honda Electric Cars for more details.

2015

The history of the company in a 2-minute video (2015)

Notes