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July 20, 2010
TOKYO (AFP) - Honda plans to roll out a plug-in hybrid and an all-electric car by 2013, a news report said Tuesday.
Japan's number two carmaker -- which already produces standard hybrid versions of its Civic and other models -- may also build hybrids overseas for the first time, in the United States, the Nikkei business daily said.
Honda president Takanobu Ito, who took the reins of the company in June last year, was expected to announce the plans later in the day, at a 0600 GMT press conference in a suburb of Tokyo.
The announcement would be a turnaround for Honda, which has in the past been sceptical about plug-in hybrids, which share technology with standard hybrids but can be recharged using a household power point.
In 2007 then president Takeo Fukui said that plug-in hybrids offered too few environmental benefits to be worth pursuing and until early last year said that the company wasn't ready to market one.
Honda's plug-in hybrid will be able to travel at least 60 kilometres (37.2 miles) on a litre of petrol, beating Toyota's Prius hybrid which runs 38 kilometres per litre, the Nikkei reported.
Toyota is expected to roll out its own plug-in hybrid in 2012 based on the Prius, which will run at 57 kilometres per litre, the daily said.
Honda plans to release its electric car first in the United States, taking aim at California, which will require three percent of an automaker's sales in the state to be zero-emission vehicles from 2012.
Honda is also planning to manufacture in the United States the Insight and two other hybrids which are now built in Japan. It also aims to expand its hybrid line-up of models to five in three years time, the Nikkei said.
The Prius hybrid, followed by the Insight, have been the best-selling cars in Japan for over a year. Honda sold 100,000 Insights in fiscal 2009, lagging only behind Toyota which sold more than 270,000 Prius vehicles.
The Japanese government aims to raise the share of hybrids in the country from 10 percent now to 20-30 percent, and to have plug-in hybrids and electric cars account for up to 20 percent of sales, by 2020.
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