Honda Reimagines EV Manufacturing With Ohio Project

Honda offers a glimpse of the future during the recent Monterey Car Week 2025 by unveiling the Acura Performance EV Concept. But the flashy show car is only the tip of the spear for an ambitious project that is transforming the company’s production center in Marysville, OH, into a “Honda EV Hub.”

Mike Fischer, executive chief engineer and head of the Honda EV Hub, says during a briefing on the move to electric vehicles that the automaker is not planning to use a dedicated assembly line for EVs such as new Acura.

A vehicle foreshadowed by the Acura Performance EV Concept will become the first EV made at the Marysville Auto Plant in late 2025, according to Honda officials attending the briefing. 

Fischer says the shift to EVs will bring new production flexibility and capability to Marysville, clearing the way for building vehicles with internal-combustion engines as well as hybrid-electric and battery-electric vehicles on the same lines.

"Our efforts in establishing the Honda EV Hub in Ohio are not focused simply on EV production but on fundamentally reimagining our approach to manufacturing," says Fischer. "Our EV Hub in Ohio is creating an approach to EV production that will serve as the foundation for Honda operations throughout North America and globally."

Engine assembly at Honda’s Anna (OH) Engine Plant.

The retooling, which encompasses both the Marysville and East Liberty, OH, auto plants and Anna, OH, Engine Plant, includes the installation of the first of six 6,000-ton high-pressure die-casting machines at the Anna Engine Plant for “megacasting” cases for the Intelligent Power Unit (IPU), which houses the EV battery and serves as part of the vehicle platform.

The IPU cases being developed, says Fischer, are much larger than anything Honda has die-cast before, and represents a new capability for the automaker globally.

According to Fischer, workers at the Marysville Auto Plant will combine the battery modules from L-H Battery, the Honda-LG Energy Solution joint venture EV battery plant now under construction in Ohio, with the IPU case made at the Anna Engine Plant to create midsize and large IPUs for the different vehicles to be made at Marysville and East Liberty.

Fischer says the retooling of the three plants in the new EV Hub Plant will focus on what he describes as “human-friendly and environmentally responsible” manufacturing layouts, processes and materials that will achieve the highest level of quality, efficiency and value to customers.

The objective of the Honda EV Hub in Ohio, Fischer says, is to establish the expertise and experience for EV production that will be shared across the Honda production network in North America, while sustaining production of its popular ICE vehicles.

The continuing success of ICE and hybrid-electric-vehicle sales will support the required investment in an electrified future, he adds.

 The new production layouts curtail complexity on the main assembly line, reducing the walking required by associates. By changing the flow of certain installation processes, space allotted for parts delivery and staging is being increased to create an optimized, associate-friendly environment, says Fischer.

"In the spirit of the global Honda 0 Series of electric vehicles that we announced in January at CES, we are truly going back to zero, transforming our production environment to more human-friendly and environmentally responsible processes and materials," the executive says.

Honda 0 Series Concept unveiled at CES in January 2024.

Honda announced plans to establish the Honda EV Hub in October 2022, including an investment of $700 million for the retooling of its auto production facilities in Ohio. Honda and LG Energy Solution also committed to invest $3.5 billion in the new JV battery facility, which will be completed by the end of 2024.

Dave Marek, Acura design executive, says the vehicle unveiled in Monterey carried on Acura’s tradition of designing concept vehicles that point the way for the brand’s future production vehicles. “Every concept vehicle has a purpose beyond enhancing the brand’s image,” he says.

He says the new concept vehicle from the Acura Design Studio in Los Angeles will be the first model engineered on the new Honda-developed EV platform.

The design of the concept vehicles recalls the "high-tech form and function of hydrofoil superyachts," with more swoops and curved lines than anything currently on offer from the luxury automaker, Marek says. At the same time, the rear end is a sort of homage to the second-generation NSX.

Jessica Fini, American Honda vice president of communications, says the company's vision is for battery-electric and fuel-cell electric vehicles to represent 100% of its vehicle sales by 2040. "It is a time of real transition at Honda," she says.