Honda plans to set up a joint venture with Hitachi Automotive Systems to develop, manufacture and sell engines for electric vehicles.

The new joint venture will be established in July this year in Japan, two of its units will be opened in China and the United States. This partnership will help companies reduce production costs and optimize work on the creation of new technologies, which in the end will lead to increased competitiveness of producers. It is known that Hitachi will own 51% of the newly formed joint venture, another 49% gets Honda. Note that the sale of electric motors Hitachi began in 1999 and since that time has delivered an impressive amount of such power units to Japanese and many other manufacturers. Due to cooperation with Hitachi, Honda expects to increase its presence in the market of electric vehicles. Let's notice, that the Japanese motor-car manufacturer earlier worked in sphere of manufacture of "classical" hybrids, and also cars on fuel cells.