March 12, 2026 - Honda Quits EVs in America

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for March 12, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.  

Honda has become the latest automaker to unplug its plans to launch new electric vehicles in the North American market. Honda had been planning to launch three new electric vehicles to be built in Ohio starting this year on a new dedicated electric vehicle chassis. The first of those was a new midsize crossover coupe for Acura called the RSX from the middle of this year, followed by a Honda crossover later in the year, and a Honda sedan in 2027. Just a year ago, Honda gave us a tour of the work being done at what it called its Ohio EV hub, with retooling at its Marysville assembly plant and battery case production at its Anna engine plant. Honda also had a battery joint venture plant in Ohio as well. 

In a new financial statement, Honda has announced that it will cancel development and production of these vehicles. Honda will write off the investments it has made in development and production of these vehicles. This leaves a number of unanswered questions. Acura already discontinued the ZDX that it was purchasing from General Motors and is expected to drop the Honda Prologue soon as well. With the new RSX and Honda 0 Series never coming to market, that will leave unused production capacity in Marysville. 

Honda was also planning to provide numerous key components, such as motors and batteries, as well as doing final production of the Afeela 1 from its joint venture with Sony. With Honda already expecting to lose significant amounts of money on the models it was to sell, it seems unlikely that the numbers will work out for the Afeela joint venture without the additional scale. 

The most likely result is that Sony Honda Mobility will be wound down and the Afeela will never arrive. Honda is also unlikely to sell any EVs in North America through the remainder of this decade, instead focusing on growing its hybrid business that is already doing well. We also don't know what will happen to the technologies that were to launch on the EVs, including a new zonal electronic architecture, software platform, and next-generation automated driving system. 

All of this comes against the backdrop of what will likely be continued higher oil prices in the wake of the Iran war. Honda is already the most efficient automotive brand in the U.S., so it probably won't hurt too much, but it's unfortunate to see yet more EVs being cancelled from the U.S. market.

Thanks for listening.