TOKYO— Honda Motor Co. wants partially or fully electric cars to account for two-thirds of global sales by 2030, its chief executive said, laying out long-term priorities after his inaugural year was dominated by safety issues.

The pledge Wednesday by Honda’s Takahiro Hachigo was the latest sign of the industry’s shift to environmentally friendly cars. The fallout from Volkswagen AG ’s diesel-emissions scandal has fueled the trend, with the German giant ramping up plans for electric vehicles.

Vehicles with electrified powertrains account for about 5% of Honda’s sales today, most of them gas-electric hybrids. The company plans to start leasing a fuel-cell sedan in March and sells a limited number of plug-in hybrids and purely electric cars in the U.S. Mr. Hachigo said hybrids and plug-ins would likely account for about half of Honda’s sales in 2030, while the other electric vehicles would take 15%.

Mr. Hachigo’s appointment was announced in February 2015 after a series of recalls and other safety problems forced Honda to scrap its target of selling six million vehicles annually by March 2017. It has been working to reduce model variations and platforms to give engineers more time to fine-tune technology.

In 2015, the company posted record sales in its two biggest markets, the U.S. and China, and saw world-wide sales rise 6% to 4.7 million vehicles. It expects profit for the year ending in March to rise 3% to ¥525 billion ($4.7 billion), and it has received favorable notices for its new Civic model in the U.S.