Honda and General Motors today made a dual announcement they had signed a memorandum of understanding related to the two companies’ cooperation developing vehicles for each others’ brands, research and development, purchasing, and connected services.
The memo includes a non-binding agreement between the two companies to “collaborate on a variety of segments in North America,” according to a statement.
Areas both companies intend to collaborate on include platform sharing, purchasing, R&D, and connected services. Both companies expressed that collaborating on purchasing would allow both companies to benefit from increased scale.
“This alliance will help both companies accelerate investment in future mobility innovation by freeing up additional resources. Given our strong track record of collaboration, the companies would realize significant synergies in the development of today’s vehicle portfolio,” said Mark Reuss, GM president.
Seiji Kuraishi, executive VP of Honda, said in a statement that the new alliance with GM would combine the strengths of each company: “By carefully determining what we will do on our own and what we will do in collaboration, we will strive to build a win-win relationship,” he said.
The agreement is the latest in the GM-Honda electric vehicle partnership that saw them announce, in April, that they would jointly develop two electric vehicles to be sold under the Honda brand based on GM’s platform for electric vehicles. The vehicles are set to be built and sold in North America using General Motors’ Ultium batteries. The memorandum signed September 3 indicates more such collaborations may be forthcoming, including for internal combustion propulsion systems.
One unorthodox result of recent GM-Honda collaboration is the GM Origin made by Cruise LLC, a self-driving vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals. Designed as a self-driving “shuttle” car for ride-sharing purposes, GM and Honda developed the car jointly.
