TOKYO — Honda’s new CEO desires the corporate’s U.S. lineup to be gasoline-free by 2040 as a part of an formidable new electrification plan that may lean on Basic Motors and solid-state batteries.

Toshihiro Mibe, who took workplace April 1, pitched the imaginative and prescient final week as a mission to derive all of Honda Motor Co.’s world auto gross sales solely from electrical and gas cell autos by 2040, simply 19 years from now. The timeline makes Honda — an organization that at the moment assembles just one EV mannequin — the primary Japanese automaker to declare its aspiration to fully ditch the interior combustion engine.

Honda desires to realize the aim in steps, first getting 40 p.c of its gross sales in main markets from full- electrical and hydrogen gas cell autos in 2030, then 80 p.c in 2035 and all of them by 2040.

“The hurdles are fairly excessive,” acknowledged Mibe, who previously was head of Honda’s R&D division. “However I feel we are able to get them. The truth that we’ve set targets clearly is step one towards that aim.”

The transformation will not be low-cost. Honda stated it expects to speculate greater than $46 billion in R&D over the subsequent six years to make it attainable.

However Honda’s announcement comes as rivals worldwide rush to roll out EVs to satisfy more and more stringent emissions laws. Boston Consulting Group forecast in a research launched this month that zero-emission applied sciences will change inside combustion engines “because the dominant powertrain” for brand spanking new light-vehicle gross sales globally simply after 2035.

The consultancy stated about 92 p.c of sunshine autos offered within the U.S. in 2020 have been powered solely by gasoline or diesel engines. But it surely tasks that quantity will fall to only 2 p.c in 2035.

Honda, an organization that helped pioneer gasoline-electric hybrid expertise, at the moment makes only one EV nameplate, the low-volume subcompact E hatchback, and it’s out there solely in Japan and Europe. On the eve of final week’s Shanghai auto present, Honda confirmed its SUV e:Prototype, a full-electric crossover that may go on sale in China subsequent 12 months.

In a earlier technique, Honda had needed to derive two-thirds of its world quantity from customary hybrids, plug-ins, battery-electrics and gas cell autos by 2030. However that concentrate on leaned closely on conventional gasoline-electric hybrids. The brand new imaginative and prescient goals to have 40 p.c of its gross sales in main markets be full-electric and gas cell autos by that 12 months.

North America figures prominently in Honda’s electrification plan, despite the fact that immediately the Honda model sells solely a handful of hybrid autos there, together with the CR-V, Accord and Perception.

Honda now targets that its North American EV and gas cell-vehicle gross sales will mirror its world targets and attain 40 p.c in 2030, 80 p.c in 2035 and one hundred pc by 2040.

A partnership with GM will likely be a method Honda will get began. The association will provide Honda with two giant EVs starting with the 2024 mannequin 12 months, one for the Honda model and one for Acura, Mibe stated.

Honda is partnering with GM partly for the U.S. firm’s batteries. EV energy packs are heavy and expensive, and troublesome to move, making it important to have native manufacturing. For that motive, Mibe stated Honda will initially use GM’s Ultium batteries for electrical vehicles, that are manufactured in North America.

However trying additional into the long run, immediately’s lithium ion batteries will not lower it. Mibe stated a breakthrough in battery efficiency, price, security and reliability is required to appreciate the complete scale of Honda’s EV ambitions.

“The battery would be the key,” Mibe stated.

To that finish, Honda is banking on a brand new expertise of solid-state batteries. The corporate plans to deploy solid-state batteries in new fashions from the second half of the 2020s. It should begin verifying manufacturing of the brand new batteries on an indication line this fiscal 12 months.

Additionally within the second half of this decade, Honda will roll out a brand new devoted EV platform referred to as e:Structure. It should first be deployed in North America, then globally.

Mibe additionally stated Honda could must overhaul its manufacturing technique within the new period and arrange new meeting strains devoted solely to the manufacturing of electrical autos.

Mibe outlined related timelines for China and Japan however did not element plans for Europe.

Honda’s new boss stated the EV shift is a step towards attaining companywide carbon neutrality by 2050. Final week, he additionally set lofty 2050 targets for attaining carbon neutrality in all merchandise and company actions and of realizing zero site visitors fatalities in its bikes and vehicles.

He additionally desires to develop merchandise from one hundred pc sustainable supplies.

Mibe declined to supply an general long-range quantity goal, saying that the aim just isn’t gross sales numbers however good merchandise and profitability. He stated Honda desires to realize sustainable working revenue margin of seven p.c, even with the shift to electrification.