Honda says making cheap electric vehicles is too hard, ends deal with GM

Enlarge / A GM Ultium battery pack. (credit: Santa Fabio for General Motors)

Bad news for fans of cheaper electric vehicles: The planned collaboration between Honda and General Motors on a range of cheaper EVs has been canceled. The joint project, which was announced in April 2022, was supposed to develop a new platform for use in lower-cost EVs for North America, South America, and China, with cars appearing in 2027. But on Thursday, the two companies revealed that the plan is no more.

"After extensive studies and analysis, we have come to a mutual decision to discontinue the program. Each company remains committed to affordability in the EV market," Honda and GM said in a joint statement.

"After studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business, so at the moment we are ending development of an affordable EV," said Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe in an interview with Bloomberg. "GM and Honda will search for a solution separately. This project itself has been canceled," Mibe said.