Honda to build new engine plant in Ontario

Honda Canada will open a new engine plant in 2008 at their operations in Alliston, Ontario.  This will be the third Honda manufacturing facility operating in Ontario.  The new plant will add 340 new jobs locally.

The new engine plant will be located on a site neighbouring Honda’s two existing manufacturing facilities in Alliston, Ontario that produce 390,000 vehicles annually. At full capacity, the new engine plant will produce approximately 200,000 four-cylinder engines a year.

“Honda proudly contributes a third manufacturing plant to Canada,” said Hiroshi Kobayashi, president and chief executive officer, Honda Canada Inc. “Today’s announcement supports Honda’s global strategic manufacturing focus of
bringing manufacturing and sales operations to the local market to better respond to customer needs.”

To respond to flexible changes in the North American market and to meet Honda’s projected sales increase, local production in the U.S. will also be expanded to include an auto production plant with a capacity of approximately 200,000 vehicles. Plant operation is scheduled to begin in 2008 and site selection has already entered its final stage.  Expansion of the U.S. engine, transmission and powertrain component production in Ohio and Georgia is also part of corporate initiatives announced in a wider global strategy in Japan today by Honda. As a result, North American automobile production capacity will increase from 1.4 million to 1.6 million vehicles in 2008.

Honda today also announced it will introduce an all-new dedicated hybrid car and a new 4-cylinder diesel engine.

To be launched in North America in 2009, the all-new hybrid will have an annual projected North American sales volume of 100,000 units. Produced at Honda’s Suzuka plant in Japan, the target price is lower than the current Civic Hybrid.

A new 4-cylinder diesel engine will also be introduced in the next 3 years. Based on the highly successful direct injection diesel engine technology currently offered in Europe, it will meet the U.S. EPA’s stringent Tier 2 BIN 5 emissions standards.

“At Honda we have built our brand on dependability, reliability and quality and today we enhance it by ensuring that we’ll bring customers cleaner, environmentally efficient vehicles that are fun-to-drive,” said Kobayashi. “And now we’ll also be proud that more of the vehicles will be manufactured in North America, and proud that many will be powered by Canadian-built engines.”