Honda will launch new global platform, heavily slash trim variants

Along with

Honda’s

announcement of the

Honda E electric city car’s production name

, CEO Takahiro Hachigo today revealed a smattering of other initiatives and plans for Honda’s future. Perhaps the most intriguing is a

new vehicle

platform to be announced next year with a “global model.” It will be called Honda Architecture, and Honda says it’s going to increase development efficiency and expand parts-sharing between models built on the platform. What Honda didn’t tell us was what model we’ll see on the platform first. Since the vehicle will be introduced next year, we expect it to be for the 2021 model year. It’s tough to say which vehicle will be getting this platform first, as Honda has many global models:

Civic

,

Accord

,

CR-V

,

Fit

and

HR-V

.

The

Accord

and

CR-V

are both already loosely based on the

Civic’s

platform, so where that car goes, the others will follow and vice-versa. The

HR-V

is a Fit-based

crossover

, but the new

Fit

was announced to be shown at the

Tokyo Motor Show

this fall — this means it can’t be the car using the new platform, since Honda says the “Honda Architecture” is coming to a model announced in 2020. Honda also said this new Fit will be getting a next-generation version of its i-MMD

hybrid

system. We expect absolutely stellar

fuel economy

from a hybridized Fit — you can check out the next-gen Fit in

spy photos here

.

Other news from Honda this morning is trim-related. Hachigo said that the number of variations currently available for its vehicles is too high, leading to excessive complexity and higher costs than necessary. To cure that problem, he said that Honda is going to slash the number of variations at the trim and option level for its global models to one-third of what it has now. Additionally, Honda says it will be “eliminating and consolidating” some similar regional models sold across multiple regions. Just like the new platform vehicle, there’s no word on which vehicles will be getting the “eliminating and consolidating” treatment from Honda.

Further electrification claims were made by Hachigo. Honda previously pledged to

electrify

its entire European lineup by 2025, and now we know the form of electrification that will take. Hachigo said Honda will be expanding its two-motor hybrid system to the whole lineup of Honda vehicles. There was no talk of plug-in hybrids or mass adoption of pure

electric vehicles

beyond the

Honda E

. For now, Honda has its

partnership with GM

to jointly develop

EVs

, and that’s all we know.