Honda will spend $3B on a new Ohio car plant built around hybrids

Honda will invest $3B in a new Ohio assembly plant, its first new US vehicle plant since 2008, opening in 2029 with capacity for 240,000 mostly hybrid vehicles a year. It follows Honda’s retreat from EVs and a wider push to build cars in the US to avoid tariffs.

Honda will spend $3B on a new car plant in Ohio, its first new US vehicle assembly plant since 2008, the company said on Monday. The plant, between Honda’s existing factories in Marysville and East Liberty, will start production in 2029 and build up to 240,000 vehicles a year.

It will focus on hybrids, though it can also make petrol and electric cars. Honda says it will create more than 2,000 jobs and lift its US capacity to about 1.3 million vehicles a year. Bob Nelson, an executive vice president at American Honda, called it “one of the most significant commitments in our history.”

Honda is betting on hybrids after pulling back from electric cars. It scrapped its EV lineup for North America in March and indefinitely suspended an $11B EV and battery project in Canada in May, CNBC reported. Its Ohio battery plant, built for those EVs, now makes batteries for data centres.

Honda plans 15 new hybrid models worldwide by 2030. It is also expanding hybrid engine and transmission production at plants in Ohio, Alabama and Georgia. Hybrids are selling well in the US, helping Toyota close in on GM as the top-selling carmaker.

Carmakers are building more in the US to avoid Trump’s tariffs, which have helped kill a dozen US EV models this year. Audi said last month it would spend more than $4B on its first US plant, in Georgia, and Toyota is moving pickup production to Texas.

Honda has warned that doubling US tariffs on Canadian cars to 50% in January would be “catastrophic.”