Honda is finally shifting gears and getting ready after many years of planning to enter an “electrified era”. It is ready to make investment of $1B in manufacturing the company’s first electric vehicles (EV) in U.S. Honda, the Japanese automaker has chosen Ohio as it’s EV manufacturing place for expansion. The process involves reimagining production process at the Marysville Auto Plant as part of a larger Honda EV Hub in Ohio.
Tim Leopold associate chief engineer at Honda Development & Manufacturing of America (HDMA) said, “We are really revitalizing 40 years of history of manufacturing in North America to be able to get 40 more years out of a legacy site like this. So, it’s fantastic”.
Honda EV factory Ohio
Honda has upped the new investments from an initial announcement of $700M to $1B in Ohio this year. One of the major upgrades by Honda is installation of six “giga presses” and a new “cell” manufacturing system for its upcoming EV battery cases.
The more than $1 billion investments in current Ohio facilities by Honda will also include several new manufacturing processes and techniques to lower emissions and waste, including using a special form of structural aluminum for the EV battery packs that can be recycled and reused.
Ohio Honda’s flagship
Honda is also planning to develop a $3.5 billion battery plant in Ohio. This will be Honda’s flagship global manufacturing operations, which shall also include Marysville Auto Plant producing traditional vehicles, hybrids and EVs on the same assembly line as per report.
Here Honda will be able to produce roughly 220,000 vehicles annually. Five of U.S.’s assembly plants produced more than 1 million vehicles in 2024 and around 64% were sold in the U.S.. Honda has one assembly plant in Mexico.
Honda ready for automation
The Japanese automaker, Honda was late automation and its investment in EVs comes much later compared to other EV makers. In U.S. it currently sells only two all-electric crossovers, Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX, but are produced by General Motors in Mexico.
Honda’s production of aluminum battery packs
The aluminum battery packs for the new EVs will be produced at Honda’s nearby engine complex in Anna, Ohio. The company will install six massive, 6,000-ton high-pressure die cast machines that will “megacast,” or “gigacast” materials, as referred by Tesla. If used correctly, in theory gigacasting can slash per-unit manufacturing costs as per report.
To combine the battery cells and packs in Marysville, Honda is installing nearly 60 flexible manufacturing “cells,” or zones, for the battery assembly. Instead of a traditional assembly line, where parts are installed as a vehicle moves, the new production process occurs parallel to the main line in zones that make it so any potential slowdowns or problems don’t impact the main line.
“This is considered the second founding for Honda,” said Bob Schwyn, senior vice president of Honda Development and Manufacturing of America. “We’re using the opportunity to reimagine our approach to manufacturing.”
Honda’s transition to EV
Honda has referred to its transition to electric vehicles, including fuel cells, as its “second founding.” Despite slower-than-expected adoption of EVs in the U.S., the company maintains previously announced goal of achieving zero environmental impact by 2050, through three critical action areas: carbon neutrality, clean energy and resource circulation.
That goals also includes exclusively selling zero-emissions vehicles by 2040. Many other automakers have delayed or withdrawn such targets in recent years.
