On April 12, Honda Motor said the electric vehicle which will be manufactured in Ohio plant next year is a mid-to-large vehicle. It is not yet named, and it will share the same production line with one or more gasoline models. Hopefully this way can improve efficiency and meet the market demand at the same time. The growth rate of electric vehicle penetration in new vehicle sales in the United States has declined, and that forces some automakers to cut production and delay the launch of new electric models.

Bob Nelson, the vice president of Honda, noted that the shared production line does not represent a change in plans. However, it will allow the company to respond to changes with consumer preferences. “We can adjust production to the short-term needs of the market, but the pace of development of our electric vehicles is still same as our previous plans.”

Nelson said the goal of Honda is to produce hundreds of electric vehicles per day in its Marysville plant. The company expects that the overall production at the plant will be the same as the current production of about 950 vehicles per day.

Currently, Honda’s Marysville plant produces three midsize sedans: the Honda Accord, Integra and TLX models. In 2025, the production of the Accord will move to Honda’s plant in Greensburg to free up capacity for the new electric vehicle.

Last year, Honda announced that it would launch two electric vehicles for the U.S. market, the Honda Prologue and the Acura ZDX, and both of them were jointly developed with General Motors. Nelson pointed out that the Prologue is manufactured at a GM plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico.

Honda has struggled to enter the U.S. electric car market. From the late 1990s to 2020, the company launched three different Japanese-made electric vehicles, but the last three models were withdrawn from the U.S. market.