Honda Europe announces ground-breaking R&D project
Honda claims to have opened Europe’s most advanced public charging station for plug-in vehicles at its R&D facility in Offenback, Germany.
The public charging station is operated by Honda R&D Europe and is future proofed for the next generation of electric vehicle technology. It uses state-of-the-art 940V technology and can deliver a maximum of 150kW of energy across four simultaneous connections, allowing for four vehicles to charge at the same time. Additionally, the public charging stations are completely powered by renewable energy sources.
Honda R&D Europe’s investment in this project aims to develop more intelligent and efficient ways of using energy resources and assisting Honda’s internal research into electromobility.
Looking forward, Honda also has plans to install a new hydrogen filling station with integrated hydrogen generation at the Offenbach site. This station will also be exclusively powered from renewable energy sources and have back-to-back energy storage and transmission capability for the local power networks.
Vice-president of Honda R&D Europe, Yasunori Oku, sees Europe and particularly Germany as one of the most important regions for expansion and progress in electromobility. As a result the research efforts at the Offenbach site are being intensified.
The Honda team say this activity forms part of its commitment to an electric future in Europe, with a specific aim to have electrified power trains in two-thirds of European cars sold by 2025. This development of innovative cars will place Europe at the forefront of Honda’s global electric vehicle strategy.
