Honda Motor is shelving plans to jointly develop affordable electric vehicles (EVs) with General Motors due to a changing business environment, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing an interview with Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe.
"After studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business, so at the moment, we are ending development of an affordable EV," Mibe told Bloomberg News.
GM and Honda will search for a solution separately, while "this project itself has been canceled," he added.
Both GM and Honda did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
The two agreed last year to develop a series of lower-priced EVs based on a new joint platform, producing potentially millions of cars from 2027.
The automakers had said the deal was for "affordable" EVs, including compact crossover vehicles, built using GM's Ultium battery technology.
On Tuesday, GM withdrew its previous 2023 profit projections and its short-term plans for electric vehicle production due to the escalating costs related to the United Auto Workers strikes, which surged to $200 million per week in October.
(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Janane Venkatraman)
