Tom Shoupe, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Honda of America Manufacturing, spoke Monday to the Columbus Rotary. Shoupe discussed a variety of personal and corporate topics including company history, philosophy, technology and future.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Kevin Behrens)
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Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a multi-part series based on talks given by Honda officials at the Columbus Rotary. In a rare sequence of two consecutive Monday meetings, the Rotarians invited Shige Yoshida, retired executive vice president and chief operating officer of Honda of America Manufacturing, and Tom Shoupe, the current executive vice president and chief operating officer of Honda of America Manufacturing. Honda officials also discussed a variety of topics with the Journal-Tribune following the meetings.
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The man in charge of manufacturing for Honda says the company is at a crossroads.
Tom Shoupe, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Honda of America Manufacturing, recently spoke to the Columbus Rotary.
“The rapidly changing business environment has placed us at something of a crossroads in terms of the types of technologies that will power and create new value in our vehicles of the future,” Shoupe said. “We’re entering a new era with the advance of electrification and intelligence technologies that are key to connectivity and automated vehicles. This will have a profound impact on our operations in Ohio.”
He called Honda’s electrification initiative, “kind of a moon shot.”
The company recently announced it wanted two-thirds of its auto sales to come from electrified vehicles by 2030.
Shoupe said a “key challenge” is finding customers interested in electrification.
“That’s why the Honda Electrification Initiative is focused on taking electrified vehicles more mainstream by offering products that are, first and foremost, just great vehicles,” Shoupe said.
He said the company will offer a variety of electric car options, specifically mentioning the company’s Clarity series coming to market this year.
Following the Rotary meeting, Shoupe discussed the challenges of electric vehicles.
“Now that we have committed to it, we are going to find the best balance of power and performance and comfort and design. That’s what we are going to do. We are committed. We’ve got to find it.” Shoupe said.
He said drivers can’t fear the car will run out of battery life and need to know there is a way to refuel or recharge the vehicles with methods that aren’t difficult but are readily available anywhere they might want to go.
“People are nervous about that kind of stuff,” Shoupe said. “Right now, we don’t have an appealing enough product line in the industry to where people I think are committed to buy those things or they feel comfortable to buy them.”
He said there are similar challenges to autonomous or driverless vehicles.
“We’ve got the human factor and the infrastructure,” Shoupe said.
He said there are people who enjoy driving.
“Some people don’t want to be autonomous,” Shoupe said. “Some people want to feel the road, and feel the car. They want to do it all.”
He said the bigger problem could be equipping the roads, signals and communities to handle the driverless cars.
“Myself, personally, I still have a bit of a hang-up about the infrastructure,” Shoupe said.
He said that when you consider the amount of money it takes to invest in fully connected infrastructure across the country, it is daunting.
“What gives us confidence that we can build that infrastructure right now, based on our track record with the current infrastructure, which is not really high tech at all. We have a heck of a time,” Shoupe said.
He said he could see a venture capital company creating the infrastructure, similar to companies that laid initial internet fiber or built cell towers.
“They didn’t know for sure there was going to be an output of that, but it made sense to them that we need an infrastructure,” Shoupe said.
He added, “I am not sure what that mechanism is for connected driving. I am not sure there is a commitment to doing it.”
Caroline Ramsey, Honda’s communications and government relations manager, said full connectivity is “a long term project goal.”
She said the research and development for autonomous vehicles is already being used, noting automatic braking and lane departure systems.
Shoupe said despite the challenges, Honda is committed to both electrification and autonomous vehicles. He said Honda has people already thinking about 2050 and 2070 and what the world is going to be like.
“I don’t know what it is going to be, whether it is going to self-driving cars or whether it is going to be other kinds of ways that we are using technology to move ourselves, whether it is personal mobility or society mobility, I think we are going to be in that mix pushing the forefront of that technology,” Shoupe said.