Honda Slashes EV Investments over Slowing Demand, Moves Focus to Hybrids

Honda is slashing 30 percent of its investment in electric vehicles (EVs) due to slowing demand. Instead, the Japanese car giant with a large manufacturing presence in America will focus on launching more hybrid vehicles.

On Tuesday, the Japanese automotive manufacturer said it will miss its previous goal of having electric vehicles account for 30 percent of Honda’s total car sales by 2030, according to a report by InsideEVs.

“Based on the current market slowdown, we expect EV sales in 2030 to fall below the 30 percent that we previously targeted,” Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said.

Mibe added that EVs might make up around 20 percent of the automaker’s vehicle sales by the end of the decade.

Notably, Honda’s previous goal was a $69 billion (10 trillion yen) investment in EVs and related software by 2030, as the market was growing.

Now, the company has reduced that amount by roughly 30 percent to $48.4 billion (7 trillion yen) due to the belief that the automaker cannot sell as many electric vehicles as it initially projected based on slowing demand.

Honda did not disclose how slashing its EV investment could affect the carmaker’s plans in the United States.

Notably, Honda’s scale-back comes after the automaker said earlier this month that it was placing a two-year pause on its $10.7 billion plan to upgrade its factory in Ontario, Canada, to make it into an EV-building hub to support the facility in Ohio.

The Japanese automaker’s new plan is to launch 13 brand new hybrid models globally by 2031, expecting to sell at least 2.2 million hybrid vehicles by 2030, InsideEVs noted.

Meanwhile, Honda remains steadfast that its long-term plan to have battery-powered and fuel-cell vehicles make up all of its new vehicle sales by 2040 will not change.