Japanese carmaker. In its fiscal year ending in March 2026 Honda was on course to post its first net loss since 1957—a failure for which its chief executive, Mibe Toshihiro, took personal responsibility, docking his own pay by 30% along with that of his deputy.
Honda has been slow to embrace electric vehicles. It launched its first mass-production EV in 2024, jointly developed with General Motors. A joint EV project with Sony was abandoned in early 2026; the pairing of two "proud" companies had looked fraught from the start. Mr Mibe has pledged that the company will invest more in software features such as advanced driver-assistance systems.
At the end of 2024 Honda and Nissan began talks over a merger that would have created the world's third-largest carmaker by sales, though these later collapsed in acrimony. The two firms could still find ways to combine parts of their operations, such as by integrating their battery supply chains.
An idle mind is worth two in the bush.