With an initial investment of $470 million, the transmission plant will start operating in the second half of 2015 with an 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 noted.
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 has more than 13,000 employees in Ohio and about 1,000 workers who commute to the company’s West Central Ohio plants from the Miami Valley, the company has said.
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