Honda to shelve $11bn Canada EV plant, and discontinue Prologue EV - Nikkei Asia

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KingMario05@reddit

Man, Canada's auto industry is on the ropes. Really hope Carney and his team can revive it. If that means Chinese EVs coming into North America (and probably here too), so be it.

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Lighthouse_seek@reddit

Chinese companies aren't going to move in unless it comes with access to the US market.

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TroyFerris13@reddit

I think VW has the Giga battery factory in plans too, wonder if they will pull out

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Absolutely not. Their new Scout has to get its batteries from somewhere, even if it's a hybrid. That somewhere likely won't be onsite in South Carolina, and Wolfsburg probably realizes that the current situation is unique to this US President. Why not have a pipeline ready to go - one that can also build ID machines for the Canadian domestic market? (And, eventually, us?)

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illhaveubent@reddit

None of that matters if they can't access the US market to sell those batteries. With USMCA approaching cancellation that's a big risk most companies are not going to take.

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KingMario05@reddit

Well, then maybe VW should take the risk. Scout is a popular brand with a lot of catchet. They need to go big, they need to go now.

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stevemkiidub@reddit

How is that going to help tho?

The only way Carney can help our auto industry is to make a trade deal. Almost everything we make here goes to the US. I know because I’ve toured both Honda and Toyotas massive plants in Ontario.

I’m game for the Chinese but they need to assemble here too.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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Previous_Platform718@reddit

How is that going to help tho?

BYD already makes electric busses in Canada and is exploring auto manufacturing as well. This will also help with supply chain with other electric ventures in Canada like Lion.

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KingMario05@reddit

Bingo. BYD can thus work with Ottawa to establish the brand as a new Canadian green energy "domestic," similar to how Toyota and Honda set up their factories all over the American Midwest/South under Ford and Ronnie. (Albeit with unions this time.)

Problem is, no one in North America knows what a BYD is. They need either a JV partner (hello Stellantis Canada), or to buy a brand one of our domestics no longer wants.

Mercury, maybe? Ford ain't using it, after all. For $5 billion or so, it could change hands.

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CaptaineJack@reddit

You’re underestimating the average consumer. BYD has been all over the news and social media in the last two years. I saw a poll somewhere showing that 53% of Canadians were considering a Chinese car. There’s a lot of organic interest. A good marketing campaign will cost them a lot less than $5 billion.

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KingMario05@reddit

Fair point.

So... Ford-BYD, maybe?

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CaptaineJack@reddit

Mercury is still their best bet.

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SonovaVondruke@reddit

Pontiac, Saturn, Eagle, Plymouth, lots of defunct brands to pick from

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Dragonasaur@reddit

Imagine the Eagle Seagull, the Eagle Seal/Sealion, or the Eagle Dolphin

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CaptaineJack@reddit

Bus and car production are a completely different game. Bus production is profitable at low volume and the customers are government and fleets. That said, Chinese automakers are building factories in Brazil with lower production capacity than incumbents. Their ROI seems to require a lower production volume.

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Dragonasaur@reddit

And it was a disaster: range bad and overstated (winters), battery issues, performance issues, and BYD couldn't even supply half the cars they promised (and they had originally wanted an exclusive contract to supply all the busses of the EV bus program)

https://en.byd.com/news/byd-electric-buses-rollout-across-canadas-largest-city/

https://stevemunro.ca/2025/07/16/the-troubled-state-of-ttc-green-buses/

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Previous_Platform718@reddit

Part 2 of my reply since this is more inherently...

The only way Carney can help our auto industry is to make a trade deal.

As my other comment showed it's not really true. Deals with the US aren't reliable right now anyway - the EU passed a trade framework and was rewarded recently with another big tax... South Korea rushed through a deal and was rewarded with less intelligence sharing and the military removing missile defense from their country. Machado gives up her nobel prize and the president compares her to a terror group the next day. Meanwhile Switzerland gives gold bars and a gold watch and gets preferential treatment. It's a complete farce.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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Flakes_Of_Ham@reddit

There's talks of procuring South Korean submarines, and part of the deal I believe would be to have a domestic Hyundai plant. If it comes to fruition, may God have mercy on my soul, I may actually end up driving a Hyundai down the line.

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KingMario05@reddit

You should have no shame in that. They make great cars, and I'd love it if Ottawa could start pumping out EV6s and Ioniq 6s for the entire North American market. God willing, a renewed USMCA will allow for that.

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Low-Umpire236@reddit

Not on the ropes at all. Legacy automakers are on the ropes.

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Baby-girl-54321@reddit

$11B shelved is huge… feels like demand didn’t match the hype.

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savageotter@reddit

The north American population is completely uniformed. The amount of times I have to explain that I just charge at home is insane.

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Head_Crash@reddit

Honda just isn't competitive anymore. They cost on brand loyalty and fall behind every year.

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KingMario05@reddit

Certainly not for Honda EVs. Those still interested gravitate towards either Tesla, the Germans, Hyundai/Kia and then possibly a domestic from GM or Ford. Not much room for anyone else, at this point.

(Not that Toyota cares. They're big enough to make their own room, and so much of it is built off the bones long established in their hybrids. As they go, so does Subie.)

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Baron_Tiberius@reddit

There's plenty of room if honda could deliver honda reliability to EVs in the hyundai/kia price range. These companies are going to get eaten alive by chinese production EVs just like american brands were eaten alive by the Japanese in the 1980s.

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cat_prophecy@reddit

There's no reason for Honda to sell their EVs for less if they already can't make money on them.

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piddydb@reddit

I mean the same thing could have been said about Tesla in 2016 and the only EVs on the market would be an $80k S and $90k X. Ultimately if it’s a priority, you gotta be willing to bleed some money on the current losses to get your company in a situation to be profitable, like Tesla forced themselves to do with the 3 and Y. Honda (and it sounds like other automakers) just didn’t have the patience required for the task.

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SizeableFowl@reddit

They’re just GM EVs at the end of the day

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CaptaineJack@reddit

Honda will not compete against $40k Teslas and BYDs. Their customers are not bargain hunters or early adopters. For them to write off billions of dollars, it is clear they did not believe their product would sell.

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Japahahaha@reddit

They barely even tried, pretty sure the partnership with Sony would of worked wonders... alas

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BlazinAzn38@reddit

I mean their first EV was a reskinned Chevy

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india2wallst@reddit

A Tesla model 3 standard is as expensive than the top trim civic Hybrid in Canada. Good job Honda! Keep cranking out the CRVs!!

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DaBanninator@reddit

What's to stop Honda from importing Chinese civics to Canada?

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india2wallst@reddit

Are ya daft ? They have a plant here in Canada.

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DaBanninator@reddit

So what?

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thecanadiandriver101@reddit

Yeah that's because they just switched to the Chinese production line. The non-China Model 3's were about 60k CAD until the switch a few days ago.

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longgamma@reddit

I mean yeah thats super obvious, you jsut stated what happened. How do you miss the significance of the price point?

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ivanevenstar@reddit

Civics are assembled in Canada by Canadian workers. Teslas are assembled in China by a company with “questionable” leadership. That’s the difference

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longgamma@reddit

I'd personally never buy a Tesla, if its an EV wont be even a used tesla for sure. Its just that many Canadians would just hold their noses and get one if it saves them money.

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Santa_Ricotta69@reddit

Here's the thing, everything has been made overseas for thirty plus years and the economy has adjusted accordingly. It'd be easier to buy local if that applied across the board, and everyone was getting paid well as a result, but that ship has sailed. The average person doesn't have that kind of money anymore.

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T-Baaller@reddit

Because every 401-left-lane-camping, waste of housing, mouth breather around will line up to pay whatever the hell the jackass at the honda dealer wants them to.

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EggPositive5993@reddit

“We had an EV that was just a rebadged Chevy but was priced $15k more than the Chevy and no one bought it! EV’s just don’t have enough demand.” Idk why Honda doesn’t just come out and say they don’t want to make EVs and never have.

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MasterpieceStill9991@reddit

It's a shame. The Prologue actually looked decent and the reviews weren't bad

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Raptor717@reddit

Prologue was a rebadged GM shitbox lol

Worked at a dealership for a short time and the shuttle guys begged to get rid of the thing

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Lower_Kick268@reddit

It's not a bad car tho, nor is the Equinox EV it's based on,

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djstryker@reddit

Isn’t the prologue just a Chevy blazer? They had a factory to attach a different bumper?

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WTFAnimations@reddit

How has this CEO not been fired? These moves seem bizzare to me

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Dragonasaur@reddit

Japanese don't get fired

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Angry_Homer@reddit

Honda's on a roll, aren't they? No EV plans, major product refreshes kicked into the next decade, and the absolutely stellar L15 being put into most everything they *are* building.

A lot of cope in here, but EVs ultimately are the way forward, and outright giving up like this isn't gonna cut it. I honestly can't wait for Chinese OEMs to start showing up here. All of the major automakers shove crap down our throat as it is -- why should I show them any loyalty?

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costafilh0@reddit

Smart. They won't be able to compete with Chinese EVs anyway. Why bother trying just to lose money?

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Thomas_633_Mk2@reddit

Because at some point you are going to have to produce a half decent EV, because petrol won't be the majority of the market forever.

They won't be able to compete with Chinese EVs anyway. Why bother trying just to lose money?

GM and Nissan clearly can, at least in the US. Kia and Hyundai as well, globally too. Mazda has their Changan derived models which has gotten them some good models without blowing 15B dollars.

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mduell@reddit

Markets where they Chinese aren't allowed, or heavily tarriffed.

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FancyManIAm@reddit

Agreed, they can stick to what their customers want and lean into more familiar gas and hybrid territory.

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PurpleSausage77@reddit

True…Japanese brands are sort of retreating, they don’t have the fire power to contend with China EVs. Their own home market isn’t crazy about EV and the way they have their residential and commercial electrical systems isn’t sufficient for level 2 or faster EV charging.

Canada is also getting BYD soon…

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V8-Turbo-Hybrid@reddit

So, who say only Detroit automakers doing this shit to harm our Canadian friend hearts ?

Anyway, that isn't a good sight for Honda itself. Canadian govt is right now to open their market for Chinese automakers, I don't think Honda wouldn't be affected by these Chinese automakers.

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