According to the NEW YORK TIMES, while General Motors and Ford are closing plants as fast as the UAW will agree to it, Japan's Honda is planning new plants in Japan, the USA and Canada. Also, Honda announces they're dropping their Insight, the first mass-produced gas/electric hybrid, but also announces a brand-new small hybrid for the 2009 model year.
Japan's Honda Motor Company, on a push to expand its sales of fuel-efficient cars in the United 
At a news conference in Tokyo, Honda President Takeo Fakui said the company would also spend $639 million to build its first new plant in Japan since 1976, and $140 million on an engine plant in Canada.
Further, Honda said it would build a new family-size hybrid electric car that would go on sale in 2009, and hoped to sell 200,000 a year.
Honda did not disclose where it would build the American factory. It has two plants in Ohio, and one each in Ontario, Alabama and Mexico. The plant would make 200,000 vehicles a year, starting in 2008.
While Honda, Mazda, Toyota, Subaru and Isuzu, BMW and Mercedes-Benz (are we forgetting anyone?) continue to build auto plants in the USA (Kia and Hyundai plants delayed while their Chairman works his way out of jail in South Korea) and even Volkswagen, which had a truck plant in the US which eventually closed sometime in the '90s, says they're thinking about a US plant, the former Big Three are clearly in big trouble, closing factories as fast as they can.
The ultimate irony is that Honda, until just a few years ago, was a relatively minor player in their own home market, and in Japan they are still relegated to the number 4 or 5 sales position.
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