Honda has an existing engine-making facility about 100 miles from the OVER HALF-A-BILLION DOLLAR assembly plant just announced today. The company says the existing factory will supply four-cylinder engines to the new plant. No word yet, though, on which cars/trucks/motorcycles might be built there.
Honda Motor Co. has chosen a 1,700-acre site in southeast Indiana to build its sixth auto assembly plant in North America.
Construction on the $550 million project begins this fall on the site, near Greensburg, Honda officials say. Production is expected to start in the fall of 2008, with a maximum annual capacity of 200,000 vehicles.
Indiana beat out Ohio and several other states as the site for the plant. The automaker disclosed in May that it planned to build an assembly plant in the United States as part of a major expansion of its manufacturing capacity in North America.
The plant is expected to employ about 2,000 people initially, Honda officials said.
Koichi Kondo, CEO of American Honda Motor Co., said during a media conference call that Honda decided to locate the plant in the Midwest to stay close to its existing supplier base and manufacturing network.
“Additional factors in selecting the Greensburg site were excellent transportation systems, the necessary infrastructure to support industry, the available, well educated work force and the friendly communities,” Kondo said.
Other major "additional factors" Kondo-san failed to mention is that the chosen site, like so many others picked by Asian and European manufacturers looking to "build where they sell" here in the USA, are high unemployment and strong patriotic, but anti-union, sentiments.
So far, not one "transplant" factory has been unionized, and the single one where there has been some slight favortism shown the UAW by the workers, the Flat Rock, MI Ford/Mazda "AutoAlliance" facility, has been plagued by problems since it opened almost 20 years ago.
The Indiana site is about 100 miles from Honda's engine plant in Anna, Ohio, and about 50 miles southeast of Indianapolis. Honda officials said the Anna plant will supply four-cylinder engines to the Greensburg plant. Might those four-bangers be used as the basis for some of Honda's upcoming gas/electric hybrids (pictured above)? (courtesy: Automotive News).
I purchased an Ohio assembled 2006 Honda Civic in May of this year. By the end of May it has a rattle in the front end even though we were careful with the car. It is now August and still no car. They have tried to repair it five times between the dealership and Honda. And still no one knows how to repair it. So I wait, pay on the car, and the Civic lives at the dealership. Two problems with a rattle: 1)they get worse and can damage something else, 2) a rattle sinks the value of the Civic.
If anyone can send this on to someone beside customer service, it would help Honda. I believe no one above the customer service line is getting the word about this defect. It's the nature of big companies.
thank much,
Terry
Posted by: Terry Wright | August 01, 2006 at 01:42 PM