Honda will spend $3 billion on a new Ohio hybrid plant opening in 2029 with 2,000+ jobs and 240,000 vehicles a year. What it will build, the plant-by-plant hybrid retooling, and what's left of its Ohio EV Hub, 0 Series and LG battery plant.
Photo: Honda
Eight months after it scrapped the electric cars it was about to build in Ohio, Honda is back in Ohio with a new plan, and this time it runs on gasoline and batteries working together. On November 9, Honda announced it will spend $3 billion on a new auto plant in Central Ohio, built mainly to meet demand for hybrids. The plant is set to start production in 2029, add more than 2,000 jobs, and build up to 240,000 vehicles a year.
The Ohio hybrid plant is the centerpiece of a wider retooling across Ohio, Alabama, Georgia and Ontario. Together, the projects show where Honda now thinks the American market is headed: toward hybrids, after a costly retreat from its own EVs. Here is what Honda is building, where, and what it means for the electric plans it left behind.
The plant will sit on land between Honda's existing East Liberty and Marysville auto plants, northwest of Columbus, close to Honda's Auto Development Center and the Transportation Research Center proving grounds. It will be Honda's fourth auto plant in Ohio and its ninth auto-related production site in the U.S. Production is "expected to begin in 2029, pending final government approvals," Honda said.
It is also Honda's first all-new American vehicle assembly plant since the Greensburg, Indiana, factory opened in 2008. Reports in September, citing Nikkei, put the project at about $2.5 billion. The final figure came in $500 million higher.
All three, on paper. Honda says the plant will be flexible enough to build "hybrid and gasoline-powered vehicles, as well as battery-electric vehicles." But the company's own headline leaves no doubt about the priority: it calls the project a way "to boost U.S. hybrid production." Honda has not named the models it will build there. It says only that several new Honda and Acura models are being developed at its U.S. R&D centers in Ohio and California.
The plant ties into a strategy Honda laid out in May 2026: 15 new Honda and Acura hybrid models worldwide by 2030, with North America expected to be the main market for many of them.
"As Honda approaches 50 years of building products close to our customers in America, we are making one of the most significant commitments in our history to position Honda for the next 50 years."
— Bob Nelson, executive vice president, American Honda Motor Co.
The new factory is only one piece. Honda is also rebuilding the plants that supply the engines and hybrid systems those vehicles will need. Honda gave the cost only for the new plant; it did not price the other projects.
| Site | What changes |
|---|---|
| New Ohio auto plant | $3 billion, 240,000 vehicles a year, more than 2,000 jobs, production from 2029 |
| Transmission Plant, Russells Point, Ohio | Converting a transmission line into a second hybrid system line; hybrid system capacity up 250%. A next-generation hybrid system enters production in 2027 |
| Anna Engine Plant, Ohio | Retooling a line for a next-generation 4-cylinder Atkinson-cycle engine for compact and midsize models |
| Alabama Auto Plant, Lincoln | New V6 hybrid engine production; Line 1 renovated so it can also build the Passport |
| Transmission Plant, Tallapoosa, Georgia | New assembly line for hybrid systems for larger vehicles "in the coming years" |
| Honda of Canada, Alliston, Ontario | Retooling for hybrid and gas models; engine production returns |
When the work is done, Honda says its U.S. production capacity will reach about 1.3 million vehicles a year, and about 1.9 million across North America.
Because that is what its customers are buying. Honda's October sales report, released a week before the plant announcement, showed American Honda up 8% to 119,952 vehicles, its best October since 2020. Honda-brand hybrid sales set an October record at 32,519. Hybrids made up 53% of CR-V sales, and hybrid trims accounted for 45% of Accord sales and 36% of Civic sales.
Honda's EV business, meanwhile, became a financial disaster. Federal EV purchase incentives ended in September 2025 and demand fell. Honda announced impairments and other charges of up to 2.5 trillion yen (about $16 billion) tied to resetting its electrification strategy, and in May it reported an operating loss of 414.3 billion yen (about $2.6 billion) for the fiscal year that ended in March. It was Honda's first operating loss since 1957.
In 2022, Honda committed $700 million to retool its Marysville, East Liberty and Anna plants into an "EV Hub." The first products were to be the Acura RSX and the Honda 0 Series Saloon and SUV, built on Honda's own EV platform. On March 12, 2026, Honda canceled all three before production began. The company said it would "reassess its resource allocations and further strengthen its hybrid models." CEO Toshihiro Mibe said the shift in demand had made EV profitability "very difficult."
The fallout spread. On March 25, Sony Honda Mobility canceled the Afeela 1 sedan and a planned Afeela SUV, saying that Honda's March 12 reassessment had changed the joint venture's business assumptions. Reservation holders are getting full refunds. Honda also ended the Prologue, its last EV on sale in the U.S. (we covered that decision here).
The L-H Battery Company, Honda's 50:50 joint venture with LG Energy Solution near Jeffersonville in Fayette County, Ohio, was formed in 2023 to make EV cells, with about 40 GWh a year of planned capacity. It has already changed course. In July 2026 it began mass production of cells for stationary energy storage, sold through LG's U.S. storage business, and it says it will also make cells for hybrids.
Ownership of the buildings has also changed. LG sold the plant's buildings and related facilities to Honda in a deal completed this year for 3.74 trillion won (about $2.48 billion). The joint venture continues and leases the site back. In its new-plant announcement, Honda says the battery plant "will have the flexibility to produce battery cells for both hybrid and all-electric vehicles," and lists it as one of the reasons it chose Ohio.
The bottom line: Honda's $3 billion Ohio plant is a clear sign that, for now, the company's American future is hybrid. It keeps the door open to EVs on paper, but the money is going into hybrid systems, Atkinson-cycle engines and a V6 hybrid. Drivers should expect more hybrid Hondas and Acuras from 2027 onward, when the next-generation hybrid system goes into production, and many more from 2029. Anyone waiting for an American-built Honda EV will be waiting a while longer.
Related: Honda discontinues the Prologue · Hyundai hybrids hit a record 29% of sales · 2027 Toyota RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid gets NACS
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