Renewed Manufacturing Investment
A little over a month ago, we wrote that Honda was having second thoughts about building another North American manufacturing plant as tariff talks between the U.S. and other nations intensified. At the time, Honda said a new plant would be essential to meet its current demands in North America, since the Japanese automaker was already operating at full capacity in its existing plants.
Honda’s fears seem to have subsided after it was revealed that the brand is negotiating to open another manufacturing facility in the U.S.
Ohio Home Of Honda
Honda’s manufacturing footprint in the U.S. is well established, and it was one of the first foreign carmakers to build a manufacturing plant in the U.S. While Honda has multiple manufacturing plants across the nation, Ohio remains a vital state for the company. In a report by Automotive News, Honda Motor Co. is looking to build a new vehicle assembly plant. The report says negotiations are still ongoing, but Ohio appears to be the frontrunner. Also, according to the report, the information came from an unnamed insider.
This new plant will cost around $2.5 billion and will focus on hybrid vehicle assembly. It is also expected to assemble the next-generation Acura MDX and two new flagship crossovers. In terms of scale, the new assembly site is expected to have an annual capacity of 250,000 units and could be situated between Honda’s other Ohio plants in Marysville and East Liberty, putting it in a vital spot for access to important manufacturing suppliers. Overall, the proposed plant would increase the brand’s production capacity by 10%, translating to around 2 million units annually.
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Speculation
Honda issued a statement to Automotive News on the new plant, saying: “Any reporting about a potential new plant or the products that could be built there is speculative and not based on information shared by Honda.” With this statement, the brand is clearly not confirming any of the information shared and reported above. An expert in site selection, John Boyd Jr., said Ohio is a great place for Honda’s planned new factory, given the already established and long-standing relationship between the brand and the state.
Boyd Jr. also said that Ohio is ‘on fire’ right now and is receiving a lot of economic development projects that also deal in advanced manufacturing. He goes further, saying Ohio is also at the epicenter of the North American supply chain.
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