Honda's New EVs for 2030

HONDA has been slightly slower at announcing its EV plans than most other automakers. Although it left Formula 1 to pursue electrification at the end of the 2021 season, even fellow EV-skeptic Toyota beat Honda to the punch with an ambitious new strategy. But finally, it's Honda's turn for a presentation about structural synergies, platforms and investments — and it's announced it aims to launch 30 new EVs by 2030, worldwide, with an investment of about 8 trillion yen on R&D. That's about $63 billion in U.S. dollars, for anyone who doesn't know the current exchange rates by heart.

And for those who still clamor for thrills behind the wheel, here's arguably the best part: Honda says it wants to continue offering FUN (their all caps, not ours) to its customers, so this plan will include two new global sports cars. This comes in addition to the plethora of small crossovers and, yes, even a pickup, by the looks of it.

Honda announced today that this move will come in two phases: from now until the end of 2025 and the second half of the 2020s. For now, Honda clearly isn't in a position to start manufacturing EVs en masse and doesn't have enough of a developed platform to do so. Although the Honda E is cute, it really is all Honda's got on that front and not really intended to be a lead car, in production terms. This is a problem, given it already announced it wants to only sell EVs in the U.S. from 2040.

Honda's solution, for now, is well known. It's going to team up with General Motors in the North American market to make the Prologue electric SUV and an Acura-branded electric SUV that's yet to be announced. Today Honda also confirmed that it would explore the possibility of creating a joint venture with GM to manufacture batteries. At the same time, it's going to introduce three new models in Japan: a commercial-use mini-EV, a personal vehicle mini-EV, and another SUV.

That's the "until the end of 2025" plans, at least. In the second half of this decade, Honda will adopt its e:Architecture platform, which will use all solid-state batteries it's been researching and has made a $342 million investment into a demonstration production line. That's going to be when Honda really gets going on EV production to hit its goal of making two million all-electric vehicles per year by the end of the decade.

One of the key ambitions is affordability, with a promise that Honda's connection in the U.S. with GM will lead to affordable EVs being sold in North America from 2027, priced the same as gas cars. So, we might finally see something that isn't a luxe SUV from them, and that's just the start. Honda intends to launch 30 EV models globally by 2030, ranging from commercial-use mini-EVs like the ones it's got planned for the Japanese market through to what it's calling "flagship-class models."

The good news is that "even in the era of electrification" (its words) Honda wants you to have fun. There are two new sports cars coming globally, one it's calling a specialty and another called a flagship. So, don't panic about the NSX being lost forever.

If you'll notice, second from the right is also that aforementioned electric pickup. A battery-powered Ridgeline may very well be in the cards or something new entirely. We'll see in the next one to eight years, I presume.

Overall, Honda is putting 8 trillion yen ($63.7 billion) into researching and developing its strategy, of which 5 trillion Yen ($39.8 billion) is going to be specifically for electrification. Honda's ambition is to be carbon neutral by 2050, the same date set by Mazda and Toyota. Alongside its e:Architecture battery-electric plans, Honda is still, like Toyota, clinging to hydrogen and also going to look into battery-swapping concepts. Some of the investment that Honda's making now, it says, will go into funding other companies that are researching interesting things in the EV space, too.