Filed under: Plants/Manufacturing, Crossovers/CUVs, Honda
Honda sends some CR-V production south of the border
In 2008, 50,000 CR-Vs will be cranked out of Honda's assembly plant in Guadalajara, Mexico. Currently, the plant is used to build Accord sedans, to the tune of about 30k per year, but when CR-V production begins, they'll be no more hecho en Mexico Accords finding their way north. Instead, production of Honda's midsize sedan will move to their plant in Marysville, Ohio.
The move, which reportedly cost Honda over $8 million in upgrades, is due to a high level of demand for the 'lil 'ute in the U.S. that isn't being met by the automaker's plant in East Liberty, Ohio.
Of the 50,000 CR-Vs to be produced annually, half will head into the States, while the rest will remain south of the border. The production shift will begin this fall.
[Source: Automotive News – Sub. Req.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Justin 8:29AM (3/23/2007)
Gentlemen, start your flaming...
Doesn't matter to me so long as the cars are quality.
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Avinash machado 8:45AM (3/23/2007)
It does not matter to me either as long as there is no decline in quality. The thing is when the Domestics build cars in Mexico the import fanboys criticise them. Wonder what they will say regarding this move by Honda.
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DarkKnight67 8:50AM (3/23/2007)
Exactly what I'm thinking ... this is only the first of many jobs to shift further south. I'm just waiting for Toyota to jump on board.
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JapH8r 8:53AM (3/23/2007)
They won't do that DK67 ... they are too proud of the "Made in America" status to deny us jobs. Yeah, right! First peso dangled in their face that says cheap labor and they'll be out of here.
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brimg87 8:55AM (3/23/2007)
The Government could (should) step in and help preserve US jobs, by taxing autos not assembled in the US.
The problem is, the government thinks that by allowing automakers to build outside the US, they are able to sell their products cheaper, therefore helping the consumer. What they don't seem to realize is, they are getting rid of a lot of middle class jobs by doing this. The middle class people are the ones who buy the cars! They need jobs to pay for the cars! So in the end, they might as well build them here.
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Dave 8:56AM (3/23/2007)
VW moved all of its plants to Mexico in the 90's. Quality tanked and the brand went from a hip well made car enjoyed by 20 somethings to an embarrassing piece of 90's nostalgia.
Nice job honda.
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HeavyArmsSix 9:01AM (3/23/2007)
I don't care where the production is, it doesn't change the fact that the interior feels like its made out of recycled milk jugs.
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Greek Boy 9:01AM (3/23/2007)
There is less and less to criticize about the domestics every day.
Honda quality down with another recall today, incentives to sell their vehicles like everyone else and exporting jobs to Mexico.
Gotta love it.
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Sam 10:08AM (3/23/2007)
Testa - it takes the same level of education to sell used cars as it does homes. There's no hardship in getting a real estate license.
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gearhead748 10:42AM (3/23/2007)
For starters, we live in a global economy, get use to it folks. It makes perfect sense to me that Honda would build a plant in Mexico. Japan and Ohio are unable to meet current demands in the US, I know this because we can't keep a CR-V on our lot to save our soul. Anytime a customer orders one, you're looking at 90 days because their coming from Japan. Half of CR-V's built in Mexico will stay south of the border, it just makes sense to be at a central location. I'm excitied, maybe our customers won't have to wait so long now. As for a decline in quality, that will be up to the managers in the plant. The mexican work force is versatile in that they work extremely hard and they do exactly what what you tell them to. They just need to be told the right things.
Blue collar v. white collar? Blue collar doesn't incinuate that you're stupid. I used to be a machinist, I made train engines and cranes, not cars, but I can assure it took much more knowledge and skill than my current white collar job and probably any job I'll ever perform. Things is, I make more money as a salesman, so I do the latter. Volvo bought-out Mack Truck a while back, I was interested to learn from friends there that you must have a 4 year degree to work in a manufacturing plant in Sweeden- even if you're the guy on the assembly line. Yes most jobs in the US are service jobs now, but you're talking about fastfood workers and hotel maids, neither of which require any intelligence.
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Aaron 10:49AM (3/23/2007)
First off, if they can sell more of those AIDSmobiles, then they may as well assemble them in North America.
I'm not sure if there is any jobs being lost over this production switch.
For Production as well, YTD, the mexico side has seen the largest % decline... almost 18% compared to just under 8% for the US
and just over 2% decline in canadian production.
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Aaron 10:59AM (3/23/2007)
anyone seen my tinfoil hat?
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Bob-omb 11:21AM (3/23/2007)
I'm not even reading all of this crap.
But why is everyone complaining about America "losing jobs"? They're only switching the Accord and the CR-V's production locations. And not only that, but only 25,000 of those CR-V's are coming to the U.S. anyway -- that's a small chunk. But according to most people we shouldn't just be assembling cars for us but we should be assembling them for everyone in the world. God I'm sick of these arguments.
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Howard Kerr 11:22AM (3/23/2007)
I don't know which I find to be more laughable, the (il)logic used by some of the posters here (are you reading this, testa di cazzo?) or the REALLY bad grammar and spelling used in rebuttal (Lithous).
I'm surprized to learn Accords are assembled in Mexico, and I thought the U.K. was a source for some of the CR-Vs for the American market.
As far as the QUALITY of cars and trucks built in Mexico, from what I understand from my reading of posts here and elsewhere, VW's are assembled with many parts that fail(?) early...is this a made in Mexico fault? Sounds like a design fault, maybe. GM vehicles made in Mexico have slightly lower assembly quality than those built in the U.S.....but the factory in CANADA tops the quality charts for all of GM. Ford has had some problems with Focuses built in Mexico...but again, I believe much of that is due to poor engineering. Take a good look at a Focus, it is engineered to be easily maintained, even by Ford dealers with "special" tools.
In closing...a lot of the above is my OPINION, much of it based on owning cars from each manufacturer. If T D C is going to through out opinions...don't wimp out if you are asked/told to back up your statements. Saying "...if you don't already know this" is either EXTREMELY laxy or EXTREMELY CHILDISH. Obviously, if someone asks for links, they doubt your credibility. MAN UP.
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Lithous 11:38AM (3/23/2007)
Yes Howard, you have perfect spelling and grammar all the time: If T D C is going to THROUGH out opinions..
This is an Internet forum. Even those who write books for a LIVING have PROOF READERS for a reason. But of course, you are G Gordon Liddy type to attack spelling and grammar when you run out of things I guess.
So go run your stuff through your spell checker that doesn't pick out the difference between "through" and "throw" and write all you want about my spelling and grammar, you are far from perfect, Mr. Perfect.
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Patrick 12:03PM (3/23/2007)
Yeah those horrible Mexicans with their poor quality products…how do we explain then that Ford’s most reliable products, the Fusion/MHZ/Milan triplets come from the Hermosillo plant? I understand that the Fusion’s quality ratings have so far been pretty competitive with its Japanese and American made competition. It isn’t the people or the places that make the product that dictate quality. It’s the corporation's commitment to make stuff RIGHT!
Other little notes:
A) People have been predicting doom for the US economy for over 50 years from foreign competition, and free trade and strangely enough US economic growth has been pretty darn competitive compared to other industrialized countries in that time. No case of Euro-sclerosis.
B) You can't protect your way to prosperity please look up basic economics 101 and a dude named David Ricardo.
C) I have to admit I don't too many numbers on had right now, but what I recall from my Economics classes at UT Austin, while the number of manufacturing jobs in the US has declined, the over all amount of things manufactured in the US has NOT...MANUFACTURING IS STILL TRUCKING PRETTY WELL IN THE USA.
Here is a quick link to a neat tool of the Bureau of Economic Analysis:
http://www.bea.gov/industry/gpotables/gpo_action.cfm?anon=391&table_id=18893&format_type=0
You can ask it to give you gross output for industry from 1987 on and you'll see US manufacturing has more than doubled since 1987. You’re not just losing jobs to them pesky ferners' you’re losing jobs to productivity growth!!!...Manufacturing in the US is going the way of agriculture...very few people will produce LOTS of stuff. But its easy to pick on pesky ferner's isn't it? Being anti-machinery and productivity growth would get you branded as a Luddite. If you want to tax companies that import foreign cars should we also tax the CRAP out of highly productive companies that find ways to make more stuff with less people? That sounds like a surefire way to economic suicide.
Oh..I have to work..if I don't spend the rest of the day in flame wars it doesn't mean I've been bowled over by protectionist arguments.
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Lithous 1:11PM (3/23/2007)
Patrick,
The problem is the link you provided has much detail not available. For instance, if Dow Chemical made every chemical and plastic thing they make in another country, would the money they made as reported to the gov't (which one can assume is where the data on the link comes from) contribute to our (the U.S.) chemical and plastics industry? If so, then yes, we will have a very rich upper class (probably more rich than before on average) but can still have lower to middle class jobs lost with real people feeling the results.
Now the problem is, 50 years ago or so a HUGE persent of the world's manufactured goods were made in the U.S. which MEANS: when someone THEN wanted to buy a product (especially the middle class which again we are getting rid of slowly) it was contributing back to the economy 10 fold compared to now. Buy a Kodak camera over 40 of the last 50 years and it was designed and made in the U.S. Buy a Kodak camera now and it is designed in Japan and made in China. Not much bang for the buck. So these rich execs who will keep getting more rich will buy more MB and BMW products and imported Italian tile (Summerville used to make a ton in the U.S.) and imported this and imported that (because it is the thing to do?) Try to buy a DVD player made anywhere but China.
Again, those numbers, I believe, are misleading. The industry of "manufacturing" in the U.S. might have a gain in revenue and profits from switching their coffee makers, toasters, rice cookers (yes, I have a Black & Decker rice steamer made here and a year after I went to buy one as a present for someone who like mine and sure as S it was now made in China, and yes, I bought something else). Guess what? Same exact price too. I wonder how many of those scenarios made the revenues and profits go up and look like we as a whole are just fine.
A "manufacturing" company moves a factory to China and then guess what? "Our" economic output (on a MONETARY scale) goes UP. So, how long before these corporations move overseas? Haliburton (sp?).
We know we have major trade deficits so we know everything isn't as it used to be. Money is leaving the country more and more.
The numbers are misleading. I can't imagine a gov't entity (source of your link) going to each company and figuring out how much was made off of the workers here in this country separate from other revenues and profits.
So yes, as long as U.S. industry goes to cheap labor countries our output will look higher as more and more do it. Doesn't mean there won't be a collapse for all the middle to lower income types eventually.
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dejal 1:13PM (3/23/2007)
On Monday Honda had it goundbreaking cermony in Indiana.
You know the one, the one that's going to pump out a couple of hundred thousand Civics a year.
Where do they make the Civics now? East Liberty, Ohio.
Same place as the CRVs.
So, no props for Honda for Indiana? The CRV is a hot seller and they believe at least thru 2008 it will continue to be. Unless they cut back Civic production more, where are they going to build more CRVs? And if the Civic was such a dog in sales as many on Autoblog said a couple of weeks ago, why are they building a new plant in Indiana?
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Bryan 2:33PM (3/23/2007)
Man the CRV is ugly. Sales will tank just like the Civics next year after the Honda fans buy theirs.
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the vette makes them wet 2:57PM (3/23/2007)
bad news! CR-Vs are currently made in Japan. And they are very very nice. Incredible fit and finish. I doubt the quality will be the same.
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