GM and Honda announced their collaboration into creating the industry’s first manufacturing joint venture to mass-produce a fuel cell system. The new factory called Fuel Cell System Manufacturing will be located in Michigan, with mass production expected to begin in 2020 and 100 new jobs to be created.
Both companies will make equal investments into the new facility, totalling $85 million. The final fuel cell system will be used in future models from both GM and Honda. Honda and GM have been working together since 2013 in arranging the co-development process for a next-generation fuel cell system and hydrogen storage facilities, with both companies integrating their development teams and sharing their fuel cell intellectual property in order to create a more affordable commercial solution.
The new joint venture will be operated by a board of directors that will include three executives from each company and a rotating chairperson, in addition to the rotating president.
What do we have in our thrilling second issue of the 2017-year?
Well, we start with the Detroit Motor Show 2017 with its production cars debut and concept models too. Feast your eyes!
Our Cover Story is divided between two exciting vehicles we drove in Dubai as regional drives. Hisham test-drove the all-new 2017 Porsche Panamera and myself, the all-new 2017 Nissan GT-R.
In our Global Drive section, I flew to London to test the most luxurious and powerful Range Rover ever: the Land Rover Range Rover SVAutobiography Dynamic. It is probably the longest vehicle name in history and sounds quite expensive, right?
In our Editors’ Choice section, Ershad drove the Audi SQ5 in Dubai (actual generation and not the one launched in Detroit) and the Mercedes-AMG C63S Coupe. Back in Beirut I drove the Mercedes E-Class (E200 engine variant).
We had a cool visit to the SVO Headquarters (Special Vehicle Operations) in Oxford Road, UK where all the SVR, SV models are produced for both Jaguar and Land Rover cars.
I leave you here and hopefully we will be covering the Geneva Motor Show next month, in March. Many debuts and launches are promised. In the meantime, pay attention to the cold: drive carefully on snow and ice if you are around the Levant area and to those of you in the GCC enjoy springtime!
Issam Eid