Following the news that Honda Motor (China) Investment, a wholly-owned Honda subsidiary in China, and Neusoft Reach Automotive Technology (Shanghai) have established a new joint venture company Hynex Mobility Service in Dalian, northeastern Liaoning Province, to accelerate future mobility services in the world’s largest automotive market;

Animesh Kumar, Director of Automotive Consulting at GlobalData, a leading research and consulting company, offers his view:

“Honda has been quite ambitious about the next-gen mobility solutions and has paced up developments in the fields of electric vehicles, shared mobility and connected vehicles with key OEMs and tech giants. China is a key market for Honda, accounting for majority of its vehicle sales volume. Honda is the second most sold brand in China after Volkswagen. The company’s partnership with the local tech giant indicates its commitment to the market and will help Honda to strengthen its position across four key pillars of next-gen mobility i.e., connected, autonomous, shared and electric. The establishment of the venture is a right move in the direction to achieve Honda’s ‘Vision 2030’ that emphasises on development of technologies for mobility products.

“Hynex Mobility Service is an extention to the already existing partnership between Honda and Neusoft. Both the companies partnered in 2017 for the development of a ‘China-only electric vehicle’ and later expanded their partnership for car sharing business in China. Honda holds 10% stake in Neusoft’s car sharing business ‘Reachstar’.

“Neusoft is a key local companion to Honda which will help it to offer new value through connected services in China. Hynex Mobility Service will develop services and technologies leveraging the individual expertise and resources of both companies. Apart from strengthening the existing connected platform Honda CONNECT, Hynex will enable Honda to develop related technologies and services through the utilization of Neusoft’s artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analysis to achieve its next-gen mobility ambitions.”