ALLISTON, Ont. — Its good news for the Ontario Honda plants in Alliston. Honda has announced it plans to invest $857 million in its car plants over the next three years, with provincial taxpayers supporting 10 per cent of the total cost. Alliston will become the first Honda plant in the world to launch the next generation Civic into mass production.
“We are deeply proud to be the lead plant for the next generation of Honda Civic, a designation that reflects the incredible efforts of Honda associates over the past quarter century to produce products of the highest quality for our customers in Canada and around the world,” said Jerry Chenkin, President and CEO of Honda Canada Inc. “This marks the first time a Honda plant outside Japan has been designated as a ‘global lead plant’, which reflects the knowledge and experience of our Canadian associates.”
Honda says its Alliston operations will be responsible for developing the manufacturing processes and what it describes as tooling trials that will form the manufacturing base at all Honda plants globally to build the next Civic model.
“Through this investment in Ontario, Honda is tapping into our biggest strength — our highly skilled workforce,” said Premier Kathleen Wynne. “Our government is hard at work to secure more partnerships like this, partnerships that keep good jobs here in ontario and that build our economy up so that people have more opportunity and security.”
Premier Kathleen Wynne says the province will give Honda a conditional grant of up to $85.7 million for leading edge technologies to upgrade vehicle assembly and engine manufacturing.
The money will also fund new research and development partnerships with ontario universities and colleges.
Honda says the new funding will make the operation a teaching plant for all other Honda facilities.
Honda of Canada Mfg. has the capacity to produce 390,000 Civic and CR-V models annually for the Canadian and North America markets, as well as for export. Of which, approximately 100,000 Canadian-built Civic and CR-V units are sold on an annual basis here in Canada. HCM also produces 240,000 four-cylinder engines annually.
The new investment brings Honda’s total Canadian manufacturing investments to over $3.9 billion since 1986.
ontario recently lost out on a new engine plant from the Ford Motor Co., which the company said would be built in Mexico because it couldnt reach a deal with the federal and provincial governments.
