Honda, Mitsubishi Group establish Altna joint venture for electric vehicle business; battery rental, smart charger
Honda Motor Company (Honda) and Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) have just announced plans to establish a 50:50 joint venture company Altna next month.
Altna will be headquartered in Chiyoda City, Tokyo with a capital of 2 billion yen (RM59.7 million), with Seiichi Fukui from Mitsubishi Corporation as Altna’s representative director, president and chief executive officer. Honda’s Takao Nakazaki will be Deputy CEO and part-time directors will be Suzuki Satoshi (Honda), Noriyuki Takakura (Honda), Yusuke Takeuchi (MC), Shogo Takeda (MC).
This venture is based on memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by the two companies in October 2023aims to initiate discussions on the creation of new businesses in anticipation of “the growth of the electric vehicle market towards a carbon-neutral future society”.
Three goals have been set for the joint venture, which are to optimize the cost of using electric vehicles, enhance the life value of batteries and improve resource circulation in Japan, as well as meet the growing demand increased scalability through grid energy storage batteries. according to the joint statement, aiming to increase the proportion of renewable energy in Japan’s energy structure.
The new venture called Altna will strive to offer new mobility services that reduce the total cost of ownership for electric vehicle users and create new power supply operations to enable long-term use of electric vehicle batteries , by combining Honda’s electric vehicle and battery connectivity and control technology and Mitsubishi Corporation’s know-how in power generation and battery storage system management and smart charging operations.
Altna will provide battery rental services with the Honda N-Van e:, a mini electric vehicle for commercial use that Honda plans to launch in October this year. When leasing a vehicle to a customer, Altna retains ownership of the vehicle’s battery and will monitor battery usage during the rental period.
Two leasing plans for the Japanese market are in the works; Value Plan and Circular Lease Plan. The Value Plan will be available online from October 2024, which will be implemented when the Honda N-Van e: in Japan launches.
Second, a Circulating Leasing Plan is currently being discussed with Mitsubishi Automobile Leasing Corporation (MALC), Honda said. This will leverage MALC’s ‘EV4Change’ electric vehicle consultancy program and aims to provide comprehensive customer support to business users to address the challenges associated with electric vehicle adoption, from from establishing a fleet electrification plan to establishing charging infrastructure and optimizing electric vehicle usage.
Battery health will be continuously monitored, including predicting future degradation, for parameters including state of health (SoH). Honda says Altna aims to conduct its business using these batteries throughout their entire life cycle, from when the vehicle is sold new until it is taken over by the next owner.
The second business, the battery reuse business, is to reuse electric vehicle batteries that have reached the end of their life as grid energy storage batteries. This aims to provide supply-demand adjustment to make the grid more stable and contribute towards the wider use of renewable energy.
Altna will monitor the usage conditions of EV batteries, and batteries that have reached the end of their life will be regenerated based on data obtained from the above long-term monitoring process. Additionally, Altna will ensure proper recycling of end-of-life grid energy storage batteries “to realize resource circulation-oriented manufacturing,” Honda said.
The company’s third business is the smart charging business and through this, Altna will provide electric vehicle charging plans that optimize costs for electric vehicle users by using control technologies advanced energy to avoid charging electric vehicles during grid peak hours.
The link between the energy control system and the customer’s electric vehicle will automatically perform charging at times of the day when electricity costs are lowest according to the customer’s vehicle usage schedule.
This is intended to relieve customers of the need to determine their ideal charging time themselves and thereby contribute to reducing the cost of charging their electric vehicle. The Altna charging plan will also contribute to the use of renewable energy by charging electric vehicles when there is a surplus of renewable energy on the grid.
Honda N-Van e:
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