Honda Motor Co., Ltd. HMC and General Motors Company GM recently announced their partnership to produce 12,000 gallons of hand sanitizer for its employees and health care facilities, in order to fight against the coronavirus crisis. The hand sanitizers will be manufactured through their Fuel Cell System Manufacturing (FCSM) partnership and used by both companies at their facilities throughout the region.
The hand sanitizer is being manufactured at the Michigan facility, where the FCSM team has been working on the development of fuel-cell fuel stacks for the latest hydrogen-powered cars. The team has developed a method for re-purposing the devices, using a system designed to manufacture the electrodes used in the fuel cells, to create the hand sanitizer that will enable workers and health-care practitioners to function better.
The companies aim to donate nearly 75% of the allocation of the hand sanitizer. As per this plan, Honda is donating 3,750 bottles to health-care facilities in Ohio and Michigan this week. On Jun 22, Honda made its first such donation of 1,250 bottles each to ProMedica Toledo Hospital and Memorial Health in Ohio, and the DMC Children’s Hospital in Michigan.
Honda will package the product in easy-to-use nine-ounce bottles for health-care facilities. In response to this, Packaging Corporation of America donated the packaging needed for shipping the product and the FCSM team worked with other companies to handle the bottling. In addition to providing hand sanitizer to health-care centers, Honda will supply 1,500 gallons of the product for use in its manufacturing plants, in order to provide its employees with a clean and healthy atmosphere.
In April, General Motors and Honda announced their collaboration to jointly develop two new electric vehicles (EV) for the latter, to be built at the North American manufacturing facilities of the former. The vehicles will feature General Motors’ proprietary Ultium battery technology, while their designs will be exclusive to Honda and the vehicle platform will be engineered to support the latter’s driving character. Per General Motors, the Ultium battery-powered vehicles can cover 400 miles on full charge.
Further, the two auto biggies had previously partnered on the production of fuel cells and also made a major contribution to the Cruise Origin’s autonomous driving technology. In 2018, Honda also joined General Motors’ battery module development efforts.
Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider
While Honda currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell), General Motors is a Zacks Ranked #3 (Hold) stock. Shares of Honda and General Motors have depreciated 4.7% and 28.3%, respectively, year to date.
Some better-ranked stocks in the same sector are Niu Technologies NIU and Tesla, Inc. TSLA, both carrying a Zack Rank of 2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.
Shares of Niu have surged 87.5% year to date, as against the industry’s decline of 12.9%.
Shares of Tesla have soared 139.5% year to date compared with the industry’s rise of 38.3%.
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