Honda Motor has said it would cut investment in the production of electric vehicles due to slow demand, and would focus on growing demand for hybrids with new models.
CEO Toshihiro Mibe said that the automaker has lowered its planned investment in electrification and software through the 2030 business year to 7 trillion yen from 10 trillion yen previously.
“Based on the current market slowdown, we expect EV sales in 2030 to fall below the 30% that we previously targeted,” Mibe said.
He added that battery-powered cars might make up only around 20% of the company’s sales by then, saying it expects to sell 2.2 million to 2.3 million hybrid vehicles by 2030.
It has not released a total sales target for that year.
Earlier this month, Honda announced it had put on hold for about two years a C$15 billion ($10.7 billion) plan to build an EV production base in Ontario, Canada, due to slowing demand for electric cars.
Honda said, however, that it still plans to have battery-powered and fuel-cell vehicles make up all of its new car sales by 2040.
It plans to launch 13 next-generation hybrid models globally in the four years from 2027. It will also develop a hybrid system for large-size models that it plans to launch in the second half of the decade.
