Honda CEO backs US$40bil bid to reach goal of going fully electric

TOKYO: When Toshihiro Mibe took over as Honda Motor Co’s chief executive officer last year, he did so with a bang, promising to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and phase out gasoline-powered car sales by 2040, becoming Japan’s first automaker to say as much.

Now, he’s backing that with numbers. Honda will spend five trillion yen (US$40bil or RM168.3bil) on its push into electric vehicles (EVs) over the next decade to introduce 30 EV models by 2030 with production volume of more than two million vehicles a year.