Honda shoots for North America EV rollout in 3 phases

Honda Motor Co. has been slower to embrace electrification than other leading brands. In fact, the Japanese automaker does not currently offer one electric vehicle in its lineup. But this year, it laid out an ambitious plan to introduce 30 EVs globally by 2030 with a target to hit global sales of 2 million EVs, 800,000 of which will come from North America.

America Honda Motor Co. projects the Honda brand will sell 500,000 EVs in the same time frame, which is less than half the total 1.3 million vehicles it sold in 2021. The Acura brand has not been specific about future EV sales, only saying it will pivot aggressively and that EVs will likely be upward of 60 percent of its annual sales, which last year totaled 157,408.

Honda brand's North American rollout will occur in three phases. In 2024, it will begin selling the Prologue electric compact crossover, which will be co-developed with General Motors but sport Honda design inside and out. In 2026, it will begin production of its own EVs on a new platform called e:Architecture. The following year, it will roll out a series of "affordable EVs" as part of another collaboration with GM.

Honda's primary focus now is electrifying current products to meet new emissions regulations and to build a bridge for its customers to comfortably move from gasoline engines to electric power. The popular Civic compact sedan will get a hybrid variant this year, while the hybrid mix for the Accord midsize sedan and CR-V compact crossover will increase from about 25 percent now to about half once new versions of the top sellers are released in the coming months. Honda has not said whether its redesigned HR-V subcompact crossover will get an electrified variant.

Acura also still has its eye on internal combustion engines at the moment, especially following the debut of its Integra sedan reboot. Acura is focused on selling Type S versions of its MDX three-row crossover and NSX sports car.

But Acura will shift more rapidly to EVs than the Honda brand, bypassing hybrids altogether. It will also get an Acura-badged Honda-GM EV, which is expected to be revealed this year in concept form and go on sale in 2024. Acura projects it will sell 30,000 a year.