Honda has indefinitely suspended construction of a massive electric vehicle and battery complex in Ontario, Canada — a project once valued at C$15 billion (roughly $11 billion USD). The freeze follows a collapse in US EV demand that has left Honda with virtually no battery-electric vehicles in its North American lineup, — per CBC News (May 6, 2026).
What went wrong
The Ontario facility was originally slated to open in 2028, then pushed to 2030 following a delay announced in May 2025. Now it's on indefinite hold, with Honda reportedly in talks with the Canadian government over the project's future.
The proximate cause: the elimination of the federal $7,500 EV tax credit (Section 30D of the IRA) in September 2025. Honda's Prologue SUV — built on a GM platform and priced from $39,990 — needed roughly $21,000 in combined incentives and dealer discounts per unit by mid-2025 just to move inventory. Once the federal credit vanished, sales collapsed. The Prologue sold just 1,731 units in January–February 2026, down 74% from 6,677 units over the same stretch the prior year, per GM Authority (March 16, 2026). Production is expected to end by December 2026.
The Acura ZDX, also a GM-platform joint venture, fared no better — Honda ended production in September 2025 after only 18 months on the market.
Honda's EV lineup essentially disappears
The damage runs deeper than two discontinued models. Honda canceled the entire 0 Series — three planned EVs including an SUV, a sedan, and an Acura RSX — in March 2026, triggering a $15.7 billion write-down. Development of the Sony-Honda Mobility Afeela has also been halted. That leaves Honda with no battery-electric successor in its near-term North American pipeline.
Broader market headwinds explain part of the calculus. US EV sales dropped 26% year over year in Q1 2026, a trend Honda cites alongside tariff uncertainty and the administration's rollback of emissions support as primary reasons for pulling back.
Hybrid pivot takes center stage
Honda isn't abandoning North American manufacturing — it's redirecting it. The company's Ohio assembly plant is technically capable of producing EVs, plug-in hybrids, and internal-combustion engine vehicles on the same line. Near term, that flexibility will be used to prioritize Civic and CR-V hybrid variants rather than battery-electric models.
The Ontario plant in Alliston — a separate facility from the frozen EV project — continues producing CR-V and Civic models, retaining roughly 4,200 jobs.
For shoppers still interested in the Prologue, remaining inventory is available at dealers through the end of 2026 at MSRPs between $39,990 and $47,000 before destination. No federal tax credit applies.
