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Why Honda put the brakes on its all-EV future
Posted by Talbot Payne on March 27, 2026
Henry Payne, The Detroit News
Honda Motor Co. is having second thoughts about its Second Founding.
Along with General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG, the Japanese automaker has been the most committed major legacy automaker to an all-electric vehicle future. Internally called the “Second Founding,” Honda’s electric vehicle transition was rooted in the company’s moral conviction to head off an existential global warming threat to humanity driven by transportation fossil fuels.
For a 75-year-old Japanese company that made its reputation as maker of some of the highest-performing internal combustion engines in the world from motorbikes to watercraft to Formula One engines, Second Founding required an engineering shift. Honda committed to ending ICE production by 2040 — including an $5 billion investment in its Ohio EV Hub, the company’s international crown jewel for EV production.
But as consumer demand for EVs flat-lined in Honda’s largest market, the United States — and as sales cooled in its second largest market, China — the Second Founding became an existential threat to Honda itself.