Ohio-built hydrogen Honda CR-V to start shipping to Japan

TOKYO — Built in Ohio, sold in Japan. That is Honda's latest take on a new technology.

In the rare reverse export scenario, the U.S. will soon start shipping to Japan the new hydrogen-powered Honda CR-V crossover that blends the range of a fuel cell with the plug-in ease of an electric car.

Honda Motor Co. said the vehicle will go on sale in Japan this summer.

The zero-emission crossover will be called the CR-V e:FCEV, in a nod to the fuel cell electric vehicle drivetrain that underpins it. Honda says it will be the first Japanese automaker to offer a fuel cell vehicle that also allows for its battery to be charged through an external plug.

Honda's approach, in effect a plug-in fuel cell vehicle, delivers the long driving range and fast fueling afforded by a hydrogen-powered vehicle. But it also enables all-electric driving around town like a traditional EV, thanks to its ability to charge at home or at public charging stations.

The system is an outgrowth of Honda's long-standing technical partnership with General Motors.

Honda said last year it would use a new hydrogen fuel cell system jointly developed with GM in a version of the CR-V crossover. The five-passenger 2025 CR-V e:FCEV will begin U.S. deliveries in California only by the end of the year, Honda said.

Slated for assembly at Honda's plant in Marysville, Ohio, it will be the only fuel cell passenger vehicle built in the U.S., Honda said. The fuel cell will be manufactured in Michigan at a GM-Honda joint venture that began production in January. After it ramps up output around 2025, the factory could provide some 2,000 systems annually to Honda.

For its part, GM has multiple partnerships working to apply its hydrogen fuel cell systems, from mining vehicles to cement mixers. One partnership, with Japanese heavy equipment maker Komatsu, plans to test a hydrogen fuel cell mining vehicle prototype by the middle of the decade.

By tapping the popular CR-V for its hydrogen gambit, Honda is going for the highest potential volume. The nameplate was the sixth-bestselling vehicle in the U.S. in 2023. Sales surged 52 percent to 361,457 last year, accounting for 31.1 percent of the brand's total U.S. sales.

Hydrogen technology plays a critical role in Honda's long-term strategy.

The world's largest maker of internal combustion engines intends to phase out gasoline-burning powerplants by 2040 and sell only battery-electric or fuel cell vehicles by then.

From the mid-2020s, Honda said, it aims to begin sales of fuel cell systems at around 2,000 units a year. But by 2030, Honda plans to introduce a new-generation hydrogen system that will have further improvements over the setup arriving in the CR-V e:FCEV.

Honda aims to halve the cost of that next-generation fuel cell system by 2030 and double the durability in that time frame. By 2030, Honda expects fuel cell technology to gain wider acceptance, driving deliveries to 60,000 units a year.

By the late 2030s, it envisions annual sales reaching hundreds of thousands of units.

Competitors including Hyundai, BMW and Toyota are also bullish on fuel cell vehicles, even if there is a wider consensus from industry analysts that suggests medium- and heavy-duty trucking would be the first practical application for fuel cells in transportation.

A previous version of this story had the wrong 2023 sales figures.