Honda Motor Co. has become the first of Japan’s automakers to state publicly it will phase out sales of gasoline-powered cars completely, setting 2040 as the goal and giving newly minted Chief Executive Officer Toshihiro Mibe a once-in-a-career chance to put his stamp on a firm that can trace its lineage back 84 years…

The spoils, if Mibe can pull it off, are significant. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and firms with a first-mover advantage may capture market share. EV penetration in the nation is one per cent, well down on China, the world’s biggest market for electric cars, at around six per cent.

But it’s a bet that stretches beyond Japan’s borders, too. Global sales of passenger EVs are set to rise sharply, jumping to 14 million in 2025 from 3.1 million in 2020, according to BloombergNEF.
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