Watch for more news on Honda’s operations in Ohio as the company continues to expand.
Honda de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. will build a transmission plant in Celaya, Mexico, the company said Thursday.
The plant will employ 1,500 workers when it reaches full production of about 700,000 transmissions a year, the company said.
With an initial investment of $470 million, the transmission plant will start operating in the second half of 2015 with an early annual production capacity of 350,000 units, with plans to more than double that output, Honda said in its announcement.
The plant will be Honda’s third transmission facility in North America. The new plant will not the mean the loss or transfer of any jobs from Ohio, said Ron Lietzke, a Honda spokesman in Ohio.
Honda Transmission Manufacturing of America, based in Russells Point, Ohio, supports all of Honda’s auto plants in North America, and some outside this region, Lietzke said.
Honda has announced investments totaling $335 million at the Russells Point plant in recent years, Lietzke also said.
The new transmission plant in Mexico will join existing Honda transmission manufacturing operations in Ohio and Georgia, increasing Honda’s annual transmission production capacity in North America from today’s 1.375 million units to more than 1.7 million units in 2016, and to more than 2 million units when the Mexican plant reaches full production, Honda said.
Honda established its first manufacturing operation in Mexico in September 1985, about six years after the company opened its first American plant in Ohio.
Honda favors building vehicles close to where customers buy them. Of seven Honda auto plants in North America, four are in the U.S. and two are in Ohio, in Marysville and East Liberty. Honda also has an engine plant in Anna and smaller facilities, including a distribution center near Troy.
Honda has more than 13,000 employees in Ohio and about 1,000 workers who commute to the company’s Ohio plants from the Dayton and Springfield areas, the company has said.
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