Honda Automoveis do Brasil (HAB), Honda Motor’s production and sales subsidiary in Brazil, has started building its second car plant – in Itirapina, Sao Paulo state.
The site is about 200km/120 miles north west of Sao Paulo city. Planned initial annual capacity is 120,000 units and output is scheduled to start during 2015.
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Honda is spending about BRL1bn (JPY43bn) on the plant including its 5.8m sq m site, building construction and production equipment.
The new plant will employ around 2,000 workers, called ‘associates’ in Honda-speak.
HAB will start production with the redesigned Fit [Jazz] and add more Fit-class compact models for which, Honda said, “demand is high on a global basis” suggesting the plant will also build for export, at least for the South American Mercosur free trade region.
For maximum environment friendliness, the new plant will use shorter production processes and paint processes that minimise emissions and material use. As much auomation as possible will be used throughout the factory.
The new plant will complement an existing assembly plant in Sumare which builds the outgoing Fit and the City and Civic sedans, doubling HAB’s annual capacity to 240,000 units.
Honda is also establishing a new R&D centre within the Sumare plant which will start full operation by the end of this year.
“The strengthened local development capability will enable Honda to deliver an increasing number of attractive products developed to accommodate the needs of local customers in Brazil. With the enhancement of the product lineup and doubling of the production capacity, Honda will further expand its automobile sales in South America,” the automaker said.
Takanobu Ito, president & CEO of Honda Motor said: “As the world’s fourth largest market, Brazil is one of the most important markets in the world.”
Honda began in Brazil with imported motorcycle sales in 1971 and local production in 1976. It has so far spent BRL3.7bn on the motorcycle business. Car production started in 1997 and spenmd to date, inlcuding the new plant, is BRL3.5bn.
Honda is also spending BRL100m on a wind farm, to be run by Honda Energy do Brasil, scheduled to become operational in September 2014. The farm is expected to generate electricity equivalent to the automaker’s current annual electricity needs for car production in Brazil (approximately 95,000 MWh).
