Honda Takes $1.7 Billion Hit On EV Business After Not Even Trying That Hard

Good morning! It's Tuesday, February 10, 2026, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you'll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning's edition, Honda takes a massive write-off hit on its struggling EV business, Ford is rethinking its van offerings in the U.S. and Europe, Germany's auto industry is in trouble as jobs continue to leave and Jaguar is recalling over 2,200 I-Pace EVs for a pesky little fire problem.

In the grand scale of the automotive universe, Honda is on the extreme low end of the push for electric vehicles. Across both the Honda and Acura brands, there have only been two EVs in the U.S.: the Prologue and ZDX, and the ZDX is now dead. Keep in mind, both of those cars are just Chevy Blazer EVs wearing different clothes. Sure, there are some other, small EVs in Europe and Asia, but those aren't exactly big sellers, either. Still, Honda somehow didn't hedge its EV bets enough, so its calling for a "fundamental review" of its automobile strategy after taking on some pretty serious losses in the EV space.

Honda's write-off    and expenses for its EV business hit ¥267.1 billion (about $1.72 billion) in the final nine months of 2025, the company recently said. Its global EV sales fell to 15,000 vehicles in the last quarter. At the same time, Toyota, the one-time golden boy of EV skepticism, saw its EV sales double to 63,000 units during the same time period. From Automotive News:

Honda's write-offs and impairments on EVs sold in the U.S. along with write-offs scrapping development of EVs originally in its product plans gave the company's automobile business an operating loss of ¥166.4 billion ($1.07 billion) for the first three quarters of its fiscal year.

Honda Motor Co.'s auto unit has now notched four straight quarters of operating losses. The company expects its EV business to lose about ¥700 billion ($4.48 billion) in the full fiscal year.

"We need to conduct a fundamental review of our strategies to rebuild our competitive strength," Executive Vice President Noriya Kaihara said Feb. 10 while announcing a 61 percent drop in consolidated operating profit for the October-December fiscal third quarter.

Additional EV charges of ¥43.4 billion ($277.9 million) in the three months added to ¥223.7 billion ($1.43 billion) already booked in the six months through September. For the full fiscal year through March 31, Honda is warning of total EV-related write-offs of ¥290 billion ($1.86 billion).

The EV hit is almost as bad as the U.S. tariff impact. Honda expects duties to lop off about ¥310 billion ($1.98 billion) this fiscal year, with operating profit forecast to plunge 55 percent.

The spending isn't close to over yet, either. Honda apparently expects additional EV charges following the outcome of negotiations with GM on the winding down of their EV team up. Honda reduced its procurement from GM and, thus, it must compensate the company for the difference. Between October and December, Prologue sales dove 86% to just 2,641 units, and back in September it was announced that the ZDX would die.

Back in 2024, Honda said it would sell as many as 2 million EVs globally in 2030, but now that number is expected to be somewhere between 700,000 and 750,000. I hope they can even get to that number, because some of the EVs they've got in the pipeline, like the 0 Series and new Acura RSX, do look very promising. Perhaps Honda would have been better served if it developed its own EVs for the U.S. from the jump, rather than replying on GM, but I guess we'll never know.

By the end of the decade, Ford will have made some big changes to its commercial van lineup in North American and Europe. Instead of building a brand new all-electric van for Europe, it's going to continue extend the life of the electric vans it already offers over there. Additionally, it's looking like we in North America might not get a new electric commercial van at all. 

Instead, the Blue Oval will offer a new "affordable" commercial van that'll be powered by gas and hybrid drivetrains. Its set to be built at Ford's Ohio Assembly Plant. So, if you want an E-Transit, you better act fast, because it'll be gone sooner rather than later. From the Detroit Free Press:

Ford Pro — Ford's commercial vehicle unit — is a highly profitable business for the company and CEO Jim Farley has touted how it offers more revenue-adding opportunities beyond vehicle sales such as in subscription services.

In December, when Ford outlined its plans to overhaul its entire business, Farley said, "The operating reality has changed, and we are redeploying capital into higher-return growth opportunities: Ford Pro, our market-leading trucks and vans, hybrids and high-margin opportunities like our new battery energy storage business."

At that time, Farley also said Ford will launch five new vehicles priced under $40,000 by the end of the decade, four of which will be assembled in the U.S. The automaker plans to hire across its factories in Michigan, Tennessee and Ohio as it expands its truck and van lineup.

Ford's more recent small van was the Transit Connect, a small gasoline van, which started at $34,100 in 2023, the last year before it was discontinued. After Ford stopped making the Transit Connect, Ford said, "Even though it's going away, we still have a few other Transit Vans in our lineup to meet your needs. Transit XL, XLT, and the all-electric E-Transit. All three just as comfortable, versatile, and capable as Transit Connect."

The larger commercial Transit cargo vans start at $48,400, Deep said.

Affordability has been a big topic this year for Farley and Chair Bill Ford. At the Detroit Auto Show last month, Bill Ford said, "We have more EVs coming and we have a very affordable EV coming here, which I think was a big problem with EVs. They simply were not affordable. We're attacking that problem."

After ending Escape and Corsair production at the end of 2025, Ford said it is spending $2 billion on retooling its Louisville Assembly Plant to build a new mid-size pickup, which is slated to start at the $30,000 mark when it launches next year. The automaker is apparently putting in a newly developed EV platform at the factory that'll end up underpinning a handful of cheap-ish EVs that are slated to come out over the next few years.

Germany's automotive industry is in a bit of a pickle as jobs and investments continue to move abroad, and now the German Association of the Automotive Industry lobby (VDA) is calling on Berlin and Brussels to figure out a way to spur growth. The VDA's president said that Germany is experience a "huge crisis" over the issue. From Reuters:

A VDA survey of small- and medium-sized German enterprises across the auto supply chain, presented by Mueller on Tuesday, showed that 72% of companies plan to dial back their investments in Germany, either by moving them abroad (28%), postponing them (25%) or cancelling them completely (19%).

"These investment decisions are already having an impact on employment figures," [VDA President Hildegard] Mueller said of the results of the survey, conducted from January 11 to 25.

Just under two thirds of the 124 companies surveyed cut jobs in Germany last year, with 87% citing competitive disadvantages.

Currently, 49% are cutting jobs in Germany, compared with just 7% cutting jobs abroad.

German auto suppliers have faced falling orders, stiff competition from abroad and a difficult transition towards electric vehicles and software as top carmakers like Volkswagen and Mercedes as well as suppliers Bosch, ZF and Aumovio have announced tens of thousands of job cuts.

Mueller warmed of a dire political consequence to jobs like these being lost. She said that Germany's far-right AfD party has been targeting businesses where workers have lacked job security. 

The last thing you want to do is give Elon Musk's second favorite German political party a foothold in the country.

Jaguar is recalling 2,278 2020-2021 electric I-Pace crossovers in the U.S. because the high voltage battery might overheat and increase the risk of a fire. While that might sound nice, given how cold it is and how terrible I-Pace resale values are, it's probably still better that they don't burst into flame. For now, owners are being asked to park and charge their I-Paces outside and not to charge above 90% as a precaution. From the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:

As an interim repair, the battery software will be updated by a dealer, or through an over-the-air (OTA) update to limit the state of charge to 90%. The final remedy is currently under development. Repairs will be performed free of charge. Interim letters notifying owners of the safety risk are expected to be mailed April 3, 2026. Additional letters will be sent once the final remedy is available.

I don't know, man. An interim remedy of charging just stopping at 90% sounds a little bit janky, but I suppose that is Jaguar's vibe. There are a lot of criticism you can throw a this car, but one this is for sure: it's absolutely British.

History.com

I'll never forgive Fox for canceling the original run of "Arrested Development" for a couple of reasons. First off, it cut possibly the greatest sitcom of all time down in the middle of its prime. Second, it meant that those horrible Netflix seasons happened. Now, even I'll admit that I was excited for those Netflix seasons when they were first announced, and I even tried to convince myself that they were good, but we all know they weren't. Yeah, the re-edit of season four helped a little bit, but it never got close to the heights of the original three seasons. It's a damn shame.

I'll be honest with you all, I wasn't really a Bad Bunny fan before Sunday's Super Bowl. I mean, I wasn't, like, against him or anything like that — his music just wasn't for me. However, after watching his half time performance, I feel like a changed man. The pure joy that his performance brought was something to behold. If you've got a spare 13-ish minutes today, rewatch it, because it really was that fantastic.