In the grand scale of the automotive universe, Honda is on the extreme low end of the push for electric vehicles. Across both the Honda and Acura brands, there have only been two EVs in the U.S.: the Prologue and ZDX, and the ZDX is now dead. Keep in mind, both of those cars are just Chevy Blazer EVs wearing different clothes. Sure, there are some other, small EVs in Europe and Asia, but those aren’t exactly big sellers, either. Still, Honda somehow didn’t hedge its EV bets enough, so its calling for a “fundamental review” of its automobile strategy after taking on some pretty serious losses in the EV space.
Honda’s write-off and expenses for its EV business hit ¥267.1 billion (about $1.72 billion) in the final nine months of 2025, the company recently said. Its global EV sales fell to 15,000 vehicles in the last quarter. At the same time, Toyota, the one-time golden boy of EV skepticism, saw its EV sales double to 63,000 units during the same time period. From Automotive News:
Honda’s write-offs and impairments on EVs sold in the U.S. along with write-offs scrapping development of EVs originally in its product plans gave the company’s automobile business an operating loss of ¥166.4 billion ($1.07 billion) for the first three quarters of its fiscal year.
Honda Motor Co.’s auto unit has now notched four straight quarters of operating losses. The company expects its EV business to lose about ¥700 billion ($4.48 billion) in the full fiscal year.
“We need to conduct a fundamental review of our strategies to rebuild our competitive strength,” Executive Vice President Noriya Kaihara said Feb. 10 while announcing a 61 percent drop in consolidated operating profit for the October-December fiscal third quarter.
Additional EV charges of ¥43.4 billion ($277.9 million) in the three months added to ¥223.7 billion ($1.43 billion) already booked in the six months through September. For the full fiscal year through March 31, Honda is warning of total EV-related write-offs of ¥290 billion ($1.86 billion).
The EV hit is almost as bad as the U.S. tariff impact. Honda expects duties to lop off about ¥310 billion ($1.98 billion) this fiscal year, with operating profit forecast to plunge 55 percent.
The spending isn’t close to over yet, either. Honda apparently expects additional EV charges following the outcome of negotiations with GM on the winding down of their EV team up. Honda reduced its procurement from GM and, thus, it must compensate the company for the difference. Between October and December, Prologue sales dove 86% to just 2,641 units, and back in September it was announced that the ZDX would die.
Back in 2024, Honda said it would sell as many as 2 million EVs globally in 2030, but now that number is expected to be somewhere between 700,000 and 750,000. I hope they can even get to that number, because some of the EVs they’ve got in the pipeline, like the 0 Series and new Acura RSX, do look very promising. Perhaps Honda would have been better served if it developed its own EVs for the U.S. from the jump, rather than replying on GM, but I guess we’ll never know.
