Honda wants to halve the time lag between the domestic and overseas releases of its remodeled Fit/Jazz subcompact by having local development bases simultaneously draw up design specifications tailored to their regions.

The Nikkei business newspaper in Japan said that the next Fit, which will be sold in more than 100 markets, goes into production at a new factory in Saitama Prefecture in July with the car to hit the domestic market around November.

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It is scheduled to go on sale in key markets as Southeast Asia, North America and Europe [the new generation will not be built in England and the new source plant has not yet been named – ed] by autumn 2014. The current model took almost two years to roll out globally because of the need to make design changes to match production lines and parts procured at each factory around the globe (the previous generation Jazz was also assembled for export only at a plant in China and is also made in Brazil).

As information about new cars becomes instantly accessible worldwide, consumers in emerging markets are calling for new models to be released in their home markets sooner.

For the new Fit/Jazz, Honda will have development facilities around the world draw up designs suited for each region and locally procured parts will be increased to almost 90%. The company also plans to strengthen development capabilities at overseas locations by increasing personnel – including doubling its engineering staff in Brazil in the second half of this year from the current 100.

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