Honda US to Focus on Small Cars

There's no secret that the global economic crisis heavily affected car manufacturers from all over the world but, for most of them, the United States sales were shockingly low. Honda already announced motorcycle production changes in US, the Japanese manufacturer experiencing a continuously decreasing demand in this market. However, the company continues its recession-forced moves with a couple of new production adjustments, all of them concerning the North American automotive industry.

First of all, Honda will concentrate more on fuel-efficient engines that would provide a lower fuel consumption, detrimental to engine performance. In fact, this is what the Americans are interested in, more and more clients migrating to fuel-efficient vehicles, usually built by European carmakers.

The US V-6 Accord sedan production will move from Marysville, Ohio to Lincoln, Alabama in mid-2009 with the first one will concentrate more on 4-cylinder Accord sedans with lowered exports to the United States. On the other hand, the Anna, Ohio engine plant will focus more on 4-cylinder engines while the production of Honda Ridgeline pickup will be transferred from Canada to Alabama in early 2009.

"We are leveraging our flexible manufacturing network to meet the needs of our customers for more fuel-efficient products. We will continue to guide our business based on strategic and careful management tied to our core values,” said John Mendel, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., Inc.

According to figures provided by the Japanese manufacturer, Honda built no less than 1,432,731 cars and lights trucks in North America the last year, more than 1 million units particularly addressed to the United States. Besides this, more than 76 percent of all Honda models sold in the United States were built in North American factories which is “the highest percentage for any international automaker,” as Honda mentioned in a press release.