Honda said on Wednesday it would start selling electric commercial vehicles in the form of micro-vans in spring 2024, in a bid to expand its electric vehicle portfolio.
Japanese manufacturers are turning to small commercial trucks as one way to make all-electric vehicles popular in the country amid pressure to cut its carbon footprint.
The mini-commercial electric vans that will be sold have a range of up to 200 km (125 miles) and are priced around 1 million yen ($7,270).
In the Japanese automotive market, hybrid models are far more popular than all-electric models which accounted for only 1% of passenger cars sold in Japan last year.
Even so, the automaker believes small commercial vehicles are key to the popularization of BEVs in the country, saying 40% of the cars on the road are “kei” micro cars.
On the other hand manufacturers are under pressure from investors to reduce their carbon footprint by expanding their electric vehicle portfolio.
“We believe that the fastest way to spread the use of electric vehicles in Japan is to first capture the commercial market, especially in the area of light vehicles, which is the mainstay of the Japanese market,” said Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe back in April .
Another Japanese manufacturer, Mitsubishi relaunched its commercial truck, the Minicab-MiEV last month. The electric commercial truck has a range of 133 km (83 miles) and costs around 2.4 million yen without subsidies.
Meanwhile, the CJPT commercial vehicle coalition, led by Toyota, said in July it would develop a mini-commercial van with minivehicle specialists Daihatsu and Suzuki.
Honda itself has an electrification target by producing around 2 million electric vehicles per year and 30 electric vehicle models globally by 2030.
