After it looked a bit like just-auto had become part of the global Toyota PR machine last week, this week, for a day or two at least, you could have been forgiven for thinking we had now ‘crossed over to the dark side’ to rep Honda. Just the way it goes, sometimes: an automaker gets a few cracks at 15 minutes of fame and then it goes quiet again for a bit.
The Honda news was interesting. The automaker has just opened its first new domestic plant in decades – Toyota did the same in northern Japan a year or two back – and this one is the third on the long-established Saitama site, already home to an assembly plant and an engine factory. Doubtless, after at least a decade of domestic automakers shifting production offshore to places like Thailand (where a lot of Hondas for the Asia-Pacific region are now made) and the US, this new plant – and its jobs – were much welcome in the prefecture.
Go deeper with GlobalData
In Honda’s European world, a decent round of management musical chairs was announced at the UK unit, which also distributes and markets power products like mowers.
Still here in the UK, Nissan detailed the cost of putting the redesigned Note into production up in Sunderland, ‘ours’, on sale next autumn, differs in the details from the one recently launched in North America.
A degree of union aggravation, industry rumour and reported off-the-record executive remarks had suggested GM Europe might change the source of its new Opel/Vauxhall Mokka small crossover and that was confirmed this week. Unusually, the Corsa plant near Zaragoza initially will import CKD kits from GM Korea (which will keep making the Chevrolet Trax and Buick Encore variations for now at least) but I can see full manufacture in Spain or Germay happening eventually, probably along with a major redesign requiring new tooling, especially if volume of this well-liked little newcomer continues to increase.
More car making means more parts are needed and suppliers are on a roll in Indonesia where new government policy is encouraging more output and firms like Toyota Gosei are gearing up to cash in.
Some interesting developments in the Philippines, too. Contrast the Toyota importer’s bullish optimism with Ford’s recent axing of local assembly there.
Have a nice weekend.
Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com
