Honda confirms $3bn Ohio plant for hybrids, with production due in 2029

Honda will build a new $3 billion assembly plant in Ohio focused on hybrid models, with production expected to begin in 2029 subject to final government approvals. The site will sit between Honda's existing East Liberty and Marysville operations and is planned to employ more than 2,000 workers.

At full capacity the factory is designed to build up to 240,000 vehicles a year, lifting Honda's total US auto-production capacity to roughly 1.3 million vehicles annually, a scale the company has not reached before in its domestic footprint.

What the plant is built to do

Honda says the factory will use what it describes as leading-edge automation, data-driven technologies and flexible production systems, and will be able to build hybrids, conventional petrol models and battery-electric vehicles on the same line. That flexibility is a hedge: it keeps the site useful whichever way demand for electrified models moves over the next decade.

Ohio officials put the full commitment at $3.38 billion, a figure that folds in upgrades to Honda's existing Anna Engine Plant and Honda Transmission Plant-Ohio alongside the new assembly site, for a combined 2,390 jobs statewide. Honda confirmed the investment on November 9, with the project announced a day later by Governor DeWine's office, JobsOhio, One Columbus and Union County.

Retooling for new hybrid powertrains

The new factory is only part of the plan. Honda is retooling the Anna Engine Plant to build a new four-cylinder engine for compact and midsize vehicles made in North America, and updating the Transmission Plant-Ohio to support two next-generation hybrid powertrains. Those hybrids will first be used by compact and midsize vehicles starting next year, with a hybrid setup for larger models following in the coming years. Honda expects hybrid-system production capacity at the transmission plant to climb 250 percent in the coming years.

Honda has also confirmed it is retooling its Alabama Auto Plant to boost vehicle production and manufacture a new hybrid V6. The new V6 hybrid, previewed last November, pairs the engine with up to three electric motors in all-wheel-drive models; Honda says those versions should accelerate 10 percent quicker than current non-hybrid V6 models while delivering a 30 percent improvement in fuel economy.

The four-cylinder hybrid system is the fifth generation of Honda's hybrid hardware and is expected to debut with the new CR-V, pairing a 2.0-litre four-cylinder with a pair of updated electric motors. Honda is targeting more than 10 percent better fuel economy and a 30 percent reduction in production costs compared with the current powertrain, and models using it should get the same S+ Shift system as the new Prelude, which simulates traditional gear shifts. The plant work lines up with Honda and Acura's plan to launch 15 new hybrid models globally by the end of the decade, with a particular focus on North America.

Which models will be built there

Honda has not said which vehicles will roll off the new line, and that gap is where most of the public interest has landed. A person briefed on the plan told Automotive News the Ohio factory is expected to build the next-generation Acura MDX along with two new flagship crossovers, a report that also raised the possibility of Honda building the rumoured Pilot XXL at the site. Honda declined to confirm specific models for the site, so the MDX connection remains a sourced report rather than a confirmed product plan.

The report tracks with Acura's own public roadmap. The brand has said it wants more SUVs than it currently offers, including a three-row model built for rougher terrain than anything in the lineup today, and has pointed toward an eight-passenger flagship as part of that expansion. Honda's trademark filings have also hinted at where the broader lineup is headed, though none of that confirms what will be built in Union County.

For buyers, the practical read is that Honda's next wave of hybrids is being engineered around larger vehicles as well as compacts, and the company is committing American factory space to them rather than importing. Until Honda names the models outright, though, anyone waiting on a specific SUV has no confirmed answer.

Two Ferrari Daytona SP3s changed hands on the same day for wildly different sums, with a green car selling for $18.54 million at Broad Arrow's Las Vegas auction and a yellow one fetching $10.9 million through RM Sotheby's in London.

The $7.6 million gap between two examples of the same limited-run V12 supercar comes down largely to condition and mileage, according to Hagerty's assessment cited in coverage of the sales.

What separates the two cars

The green SP3, finished in Verde Francesca, shows just 81 miles on its odometer, while the yellow car has covered 2,948 miles and reportedly served as a Ferrari press vehicle at one point.

Hagerty's read is that the US market is far more willing to pay a premium for rare, low-mileage supercars, which helps explain why the American sale outstripped the London result.

Beyond the colour combination and the exceptionally low mileage, there is nothing else that sets the green car apart, which makes the hammer price a striking outlier even by Ferrari standards.

The $18.54 million figure is the highest recorded for an SP3 apart from a single car that brought $26 million at a charity auction.

The hardware underneath

Both cars carry the same mechanical package: a naturally aspirated V12 with no turbochargers and no electrification, rated at 829 horsepower and revving beyond 9,000 rpm.

The Daytona SP3's design draws on Ferrari's historic race cars, which is central to its appeal among collectors.

That specification is fixed across the model, so the auction results say more about how these cars are kept and driven than about any difference between them.

A market that rewards not driving

The green car's near-delivery mileage implies a life spent in climate-controlled storage rather than on the road, and it will likely continue to move between owners inside a car carrier or the hold of a cargo jet rather than under its own power.

The yellow car's 2,948 miles, by contrast, mark it as one that has actually been used, and the market priced that history accordingly.

For buyers watching supercar values, the takeaway is blunt: on limited-run models, mileage and originality of specification carry more weight than the driving experience itself. The gap between the two results is a premium paid for a car that has barely been driven, not for anything mechanical.