When Toshihiro Mibe took over as Honda Motor Co.¡¯s chief executive officer last year, he did so with a bang, promising to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and phase out gasoline-powered car sales by 2040, becoming Japan¡¯s first automaker to say as much.

Now, he¡¯s backing that with numbers. Honda will spend ?5 trillion ($40 billion) on its push into electric vehicles over the next decade in order to introduce 30 EV models by 2030 with a production volume of more than 2 million vehicles a year.

¡°We can no longer envision the future by drawing a straight line forward from our autos business as it exists today,¡± the CEO said in an interview after unveiling his spending plans. ¡°Within this broad-scope image, we¡¯re making significant progress.¡±