Late final 12 months, a handful of retired Honda Motor executives began assembly privately to debate the Japanese automaker’s troubles and the particular person they believed was the trigger: Chief Government Toshihiro Mibe.
Over months of textual content messages, in addition to conferences and meals that typically included present executives, they laid out a case in opposition to the previous engineer, in keeping with a written abstract of their discussions and interviews with two individuals.
They blamed Mibe for neglecting China, the world’s largest auto market, and making a “failed” guess on electrical automobiles that would depart Honda with its first annual loss in seven a long time. They accused him of paying extra consideration to Honda’s golf sponsorship than its enterprise.
