Honda is shifting output of North American Civic hybrids from Japan and boosting output at its Indiana plant.
Honda Manufacturing of Indiana will spend US$40m to increase annual production capacity by 50,000 units to 250,000 vehicles. The plant will hire approximately 300 new workers later this year in preparation for the increased production that will start early next year.
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Early next year, HMIN will also add production of the Civic Hybrid, Honda’s most popular hybrid model in the United States. Indiana was the first Honda plant in North America to build a hybrid vehicle when it started Acura ILX Hybrid production in April.
These latest announcements follow the start of a second shift of production last autumn at Honda Manufacturing of Indiana that added approximately 1,000 jobs. HMIN produces the popular Civic sedan and a natural gas variant on the same assembly line with the Acura ILX.
Since late last year, Honda’s seven automobile production plants in North America have been operating at or above their full straight-time capacity, which currently totals 1.63m vehicles per year. In addition to the new second shift at the Indiana plant, Honda’s plant in Marysville, Ohio resumed second-shift production on Line 1 late last year.
Last November, Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, LLC announced that it will increase capacity by 40,000 units to 340,000 light trucks per year, starting this autumn. This increase, plus the additional 50,000 units at Indiana, will increase Honda’s North American auto production capacity to 1.72m units per year. Capacity in the region will total 1.92m units after the new Mexico plant starts production of the Fit [Jazz] subcompact in spring 2014.
