Biography | Takahiro Hachigo — The Frankfurt Hall Where the IAA Camera Found Honda's Chief

A Honda chief is easy to file as a Tokyo-only figure. On 12 September 2017 the camera found him on the IAA floor in Frankfurt. The photographer was Matti Blume. The file on Wikimedia Commons is dated that day, during the press preview of the 2017 International Motor Show. The public show ran from 14 to 24 September at Messe Frankfurt. Hachigo had then been Honda's president and chief executive for two years. The official title dated from late June 2015. The picture is not a board portrait. He stands in a suit beside a white Honda, hands mid-sentence. That is the job the Aoyama announcement had described: take the product to the hall where the industry meets. IAA 2017 was still the old Frankfurt cycle, before the passenger-car edition later left this site. The hall is a public fairground, not a private office. A visitor can stand on the same ground without crossing a factory gate. By 2017 the company was already publishing electrification language for the next decade. Honda's later 2030 Vision, credited to his term, aimed for electrified vehicles to make up two-thirds of global sales, with a smaller slice as battery-electric or fuel-cell cars. The Frankfurt frame sits in the middle of that argument, not at its start. Hachigo remained in the chair until 1 April 2021. No remark from the stand is repeated here. The photograph is the primary record of the day. Photo: Matti Blume, IAA 2017, Frankfurt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.