Honda Pumping More than $4B into EV Projects in Ohio

Honda’s investing at least $4 billion into two separate projects in Ohio in order ready the company for electric vehicle production in the U.S.

Honda battery sub-assembly 2021 — Honda plans to invest more than $4 billion to update three plants and build a new one in Ohio to make the switch to EVs in the U.S.

The Japanese automaker plans to invest $700 million into its three existing Honda plants in Ohio: Marysville Auto Plant, East Liberty Auto Plant and Anna Engine Plant, readying them to build electric vehicles as well as continuing to produce gas-powered vehicles as well, officials noted. The moves will add 300 jobs.

The company also plans to partner with LG Energy Solution to build a $3.5 billion plant to manufacture battery modules to power the new EVs that will be produced at the Ohio plants. Once it’s up and running, it will put out 40 GWh of batteries annually.

Staying put — for a reason

The announcements come 45 years to the day Honda revealed plans to open the Marysville plant — it’s first in the U.S. Bob Nelson, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co. Inc., described the move as being part of a “one in a hundred-year shift” from gasoline to electricity.

Honda Acura line in Ohio — Honda’s not planning to build the new Prologue and Acura ZDX at the Ohio plants.

“This investment will set the course to charge the development of our electrified future for the next 40 years and beyond,” Nelson told reporters during an online press conference before the event. “But we didn’t make this decision simply because we began production in Ohio over the past four decades, Honda has continued investing in Ohio, establishing comprehensive production, purchasing and production, product development capabilities here.”

Nelson noted southeastern Ohio is already flush with the types of workers the company needs for the shift — as many as 2,500 between the three car factories and the new battery plant — putting the new plant elsewhere didn’t make sense.

Battery plant

The company said its partnership with LG Energy will ultimately climb to a $4.4 billion investment in the battery plant, which will be about 40 miles from Columbus, Ohio. The site will produce pouch-type batteries for the three other plants building the EVs.

Honda Marysville worker Melissa Vance 2021 REL — Honda officials noted the company’s workforce was a key reason for opening the new plant in Ohio.

The news of the battery plant wasn’t new, the company revealed the plans in late August, but the location of the facility was the noteworthy information.

The two companies plan to begin construction in Fayette County in early 2023, in order to complete the new battery production facility by the end of 2024. This will enable the start of mass production of battery modules using advanced pouch-type, Li-ion cells by the end of 2025.

Today’s battery-electric vehicles typically hold between 65 and 100 kilowatt-hours of batteries, depending upon the desired range. That would translate into enough output from the new plant to supply anywhere from around 400,000 to more than 600,000 vehicles. That would fall in line with Honda’s stated goal of producing about 500,000 all-electric vehicles for the U.S. market by the end of the decade.

Honda officials were quick to note the move to build the battery plant wasn’t influenced by the EV tax credit requirements laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act.

“We started this well before the IRA,” Nelson said. “So you know, this is this is a decision that takes some time for us to develop and implement. So those lead times were in advance of the IRA announcement.”