Honda Motor Company (Honda) and Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) has announced plans for a 50:50 joint venture company, Altna, which will be established next month.
Altna is to be headquartered in Chiyoda City, Tokyo with two billion yen (RM59.7 million) in capital, with Seiichi Fukui from Mitsubishi Corporation as representative director, president and CEO of Altna. Takao Nakazaki from Honda will be executive VP, and part-time directors will be Suzuki Satoshi (Honda), Noriyuki Takakura (Honda), Yusuke Takeuchi (MC), Shogo Takeda (MC).
This joint venture is based on the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the two companies in October 2023, which was aimed at starting discussions for the creation of new businesses in anticipation of “growth in the electric vehicle market toward a decarbonised future society.”
Three objectives have been laid out for the joint venture, namely the optimisation of EV usage costs, the enhancement of batteries’ lifetime value and the improvement of resource circulation in Japan, as well as to accommodate increasing demand for adjustment capacities through grid energy storage batteries for an increase in the proportion of renewable energy in the energy mix for Japan, according to the joint statement.
The new joint venture that is Altna will strive to offer new mobility services which reduce the total cost of ownership for EV users, and to create new power supply operations to enable long-term utilisation of EV batteries, through combining the control and connected technologies for EVs and batteries by Honda, and the power generation know-how and administration of storage battery systems and smart charging operations by Mitsubishi Corporation.
Altna will offer the battery leasing business with the Honda N-Van e:, a commercial-use mini EV that Honda plans to launch in October this year. Upon lease of the vehicle to the customer, Altna retains ownership of the vehicle battery, and will monitor its usage during the lease period.
Two leasing plans for the Japanese market are in the pipeline; the Value Plan, and the Circular Lease Plan. The Value Plan will be offered online from October 2024, which will be rolled out upon the market launch of the Honda N-Van e: in Japan.
The second, the Circular Lease Plan is currently under discussion with the Mitsubishi Auto Leasing Corporation (MALC), says Honda. This will levarage the ‘EV4Change’ EV consulation programme by MALC, and aims to offer corporate users end-to-end customer support to address challenges associated with using EVs, from establishing fleet electrification plans to setting up charging infrastructure and optimising EV use.
Battery conditions will be continuously monitored, including for predicting future deterioration, for parameters including its state of health (SoH). Altna aims to conduct its business using these batteries for their entire life cycle, from the time the vehicle is sold from new, through to ownership by subsequent owners, says Honda.
The second business, the battery repurposing business, is to repurpose end-of-life electric vehicle batteries as grid energy storage batteries. This is aimed at providing supply-demand adjustment capacity for greater grid stability, and to contribute towards wider utilisation of renewable energy.
Usage conditions of the EV batteries will be monitored by Altna, and the batteries that have reached their end of life will be recovered, based on data obtained from said long-term monitoring. Additionally, Altna will ensure appropriate recycling of its end-of-life grid energy storage batteries “to realise resource circulation-oriented manufacturing,” Honda stated.
Its third business is the smart charging business, and through this Altna will offer EV charging plans that optimise costs for EV users by using advanced energy control technologies to avoid the charging of EVs during energy grid peak hours.
The link between the energy control system and customer EVs will automatically perform charging at times of the day when the cost of electricity is at its lowest according to the customers’ vehicle usage schedule.
This is aimed at relieving the customer of having to identify ideal charging times on their own, and thus contributing to the reduction of their EV charging costs. Altna charging plans will also contribute to the use of renewable energy by charging EVs when there is a surplus of renewable energy on the electricity grid.
Honda N-Van e:
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Saw NBox and fell for it. Why HM didn’t introduce this setup for Malaysians?
We have small parking spaces either home nor offices – as Japanese
We are currently in the midst of non subsidised fuel – as Japanese
We mostly have 2-3 kids – as Japanese
We love to camp near beach or mountain – as Japanese
Small cars are very practical nowadays.
Honda Msia cant bring NBox because after all the tongkat duty they will have to price it close to 100k
i also like affordable Tin
i also like cheap car that run efficiently
Just wait for it when Mitsu later found to falsify the range of these JV batteries.