Honda’s been building cars in Canada for decades, but now they’re setting their sights on electric vehicles (EVs) and building a whole new system to make them entirely in Canada.
Honda announced a whopping $11 billion investment, the biggest ever for the Canadian car industry. This money will be used to build four new factories near their existing facilities in Ontario. The goal? Start building EVs in Canada by 2027.
These new factories will create a complete Canadian supply chain for electric vehicles. This means everything from building the cars themselves to making the batteries and battery parts will happen right there in Canada. Honda’s hoping this will allow them to build EVs cheaper and with less impact on the environment. Their ultimate goal? Stop building gasoline-powered cars altogether by 2040 and achieve zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
Lots of New Jobs and Electric Cars
The new factories are expected to create 1,000 new jobs on top of the existing 4,200 Honda employees in Canada. They’re also keeping busy building the CR-V and Civic there, and at least two new electric models will be added by 2028.
While details about the new electric vehicles are still under wraps, experts predict a small Honda-branded electric crossover to be the first one out in 2027, followed by a larger Acura electric crossover in 2028.
These new models will be built on a brand new platform designed specifically for electric vehicles, unlike the current Honda Prologue which is built by General Motors.
Honda gave us a glimpse of what their new electric cars might look like with some concept cars earlier this year. The one expected to inspire the first production model is the Saloon, which some say looks like a fancy vacuum cleaner. This will be Honda’s first “next-generation” electric car, and its design is expected to influence future models, including the crossover coming to Canada in 2027.
It looks like Honda is taking electric vehicles seriously, and Canada is about to become a big part of their electric future!
