Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav After US government policies wrecked the country’s electric vehicle market, automakers have been scrambling to adapt. The loss of federal clean vehicle tax incentives and funding for charging infrastructure, combined with capricious tariffs, has resulted in a 28 percent drop in EV sales for the first three months of the year.
That’s a far cry from just a few years ago, when optimism abounded and a strong commitment to an EV-heavy portfolio translated into a higher share price. As those commitments are abandoned, there’s a financial price to pay, including more than $9 billion of write-downs for Honda, which made its first operating loss in the company’s history.
Honda’s first move was to cancel a trio of EVs it planned to build in Ohio, along with another pair of EVs planned as part of a joint venture with Sony. Yesterday, in Tokyo, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe held a press conference to announce the automaker’s plan to rebuild its business in the wake of these changes.
Like General Motors before it, Honda says it needs more hybrids moving forward; this technology, importantly, requires far fewer expensive battery minerals and materials than a battery EV.
“Honda will reallocate more development and production resources into hybrid models to accelerate the market launch ahead of the original schedule and increase the number of compelling products,” said Mibe. “We have made steady progress in the development of hybrid vehicle technologies, where Honda has strengths, based on our belief that hybrid models will continue to be the key to addressing environmental challenges.”
To that end, Honda says it will launch 15 models with a new generation of hybrid powertrains by 2030, with most of them destined for here in North America. Yes, that includes a full-size SUV to compete in the D-segment with vehicles like the Toyota Sequoia or Chevrolet Suburban. Honda is targeting a 10 percent increase in fuel efficiency and a 30 percent reduction in cost for the new hybrid system, with the first of the new hybrids—the sedan you see here—planned to debut next year. Acura, Honda’s North American performance brand, isn’t being left out—at least one of the prototypes shown was a new hybrid Acura SUV.
Honda plans to rejigger its US factories so they’re all capable of producing hybrids; last year, we learned about the effort it made to incorporate BEV assembly into its Marysville, Ohio, plant. And a battery joint venture with LG Energy Solution that was supposed to make EV batteries will have part of its line converted to make hybrid traction batteries, now that Honda will need so many more of those.
Honda’s plan for Japan looks very different from its plan for North America. Instead of lots of bigger hybrids, Japan will receive more electric Kei cars; you will probably recall the diminutive vehicle form factor was recently praised by President Trump, although my repeated inquiries to the US Department of Transportation have failed to uncover any actual progress toward his promise to make these tiny cars and trucks street-legal here.
Growth in China will require the company to “incorporat[e] the overwhelming speed of local businesses,” and, unlike the US, success here will require many more new EVs. India will be another important region, according to the company. There, the plan is for mid-size vehicles, but also products far smaller that can tempt some of Honda’s 6 million Indian motorcycle customers to trade up to something more expensive with twice as many wheels.
