Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Hiroyuki Yoshino, President & C.E.O.) and NEC Corp. (Koji Nishigaki, President ) announced today that they have reached a general agreement regarding the idea of shifting NEC's vehicle electronic control unit operations into the Honda group.

Through this agreement, Honda aims to strengthen its vehicle control electronics operations in response to the increasingly advanced nature of vehicle electronic technologies. This development will also allow NEC to further concentrate its efforts on its core technologies - device solutions such as system LSI for vehicles and ITS solutions such as communication infrastructures.

Specifically, in order to assimilate NEC's vehicle electronic control unit operations, Honda will make an increased investment in Nestec Co., Ltd., an affiliate of Honda, gradually making it a Honda subsidiary. NEC is considering a plan to invest in a 1/3 share of this newly organized company to facilitate the smooth function of its operations.

In the future, this Honda subsidiary will mainly be involved in the development, manufacture and sale of vehicle electronic control units for chassis related control thus fully exploiting the control and sensing technologies which NEC has developed thus far.