- Honda says it will sell only battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles by 2040.
- The company will gradually increase the percentage of electric vehicles it sells over the coming decades.
- Honda and Acura EV crossovers will arrive in the U.S. for the 2024 model year.
Honda is the latest automaker to make an ambitious commitment to electric vehicles. Toshihiro Mibe, the company's new CEO, announced that Honda will exclusively sell battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles by 2040. The company also set a timeline for its phasing out of gasoline engines, which will gradually disappear from the lineup over the next two decades.
For North America specifically, the goal is to for EVs and fuel-cell vehicles to make up 40 percent of Honda's new-vehicle sales by 2030, 80 percent by 2035, and 100 percent by 2040. The first two of Honda's new EV models will arrive for the 2024 model year using GM's Ultium battery platform. Both will be crossovers, with one wearing a Honda badge and the other falling under the Acura luxury division. We might expect the Honda version to look somewhat like the Honda e SUV prototype recently shown for the Chinese market (pictured above).
After the Ultium-powered EVs arrive, Honda will introduce its own electric-vehicle platform called e:Architecture. The company says these models will arrive in the "second half of the 2020s" and that they'll go on sale in North America before they reach other global markets.
Honda is less specific about its U.S. plans for hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicles. It currently sells the Clarity in California but has not announced any additional fuel-cell models for the near future.