Honda Motor Co. is promoting its current head of research and development Toshihiro Mibe to chief executive, the latest in a number of bold moves the automaker is taking to step beyond its more than half-a-century-long reliance on selling gasoline-powered cars.
Mibe, 59, will also assume the president role effective April 1, the company said in a statement Friday. Honda¡¯s current CEO Takahiro Hachigo, who helmed the firm for six years, will become a director as of that date and then retire from the company at its general meeting in June.
Honda¡¯s new chief is taking the top job as the Japanese carmaker pushes to stay abreast of the two great shifts hitting the auto industry: automation and electrification. Since joining Honda in 1987, Mibe has occupied various roles, including as the chief of Honda¡¯s R&D subsidiary, where he was central to driving the company¡¯s electric vehicle technologies and autonomous driving strategies.
Honda, like most legacy automakers, is struggling to find ways to fund next-generation electric and driverless car technologies while keeping its gas-powered car sales afloat. Hachigo, who took office in 2015, sought to move away from past initiatives prioritizing scale to focus on costs. Under his leadership, Honda trimmed a number of factories in Japan and abroad.
¡°Honda has worked to solidify its existing businesses and prepare for future growth. My job is to accelerate,¡± said Mibe, speaking at a briefing Friday. Honda in the past has sought to do everything internally, but as the company faces once-in-an-era changes, ¡°time is of the essence and I would opt to use alliances and external insight to accelerate our shift,¡± he said.
In recent months, Honda has taken a number of steps to reallocate resources into next-generation technologies. In September, it formed an alliance with General Motors Co. to cooperate in areas such as research and connected-car services. The next month, Honda announced it will no longer participate in Formula One racing, seeking to reallocate resources to its development of EV and fuel-cell technologies.
Honda, which aims to electrify two thirds of its global car sales by 2030, has weathered a tough 2020, a period when vehicle sales were crushed by pandemic-related disruptions. It¡¯s targeting an operating profit of ?520 billion ($5 billion) for the 12 months through March, down about 18% from the previous year.
The automaker is also grappling with a chip shortage that¡¯s forcing automakers worldwide to pare their output just as car demand begins to recover. The semiconductor shortage is estimated to knock 500,000 units off of Japanese carmakers¡¯ output largely in the first half. Within Japan, it¡¯s estimated Honda will shoulder the bulk of those losses.
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