By BRENT SNAVELY • FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITERHonda Motor Co. said today it is boosting U.S. production of its Honda Accord while cutting production of its Odyssey minivans and Pilot sport-utility vehicles.
Honda said it is transferring most of its V6 Accord assembly from its plant in Marysville, Ohio, to its plant in Lincoln, Ala., where it has cut minivan and SUV production by 10,000 units this year. After moving most V6 Accord production to Alabama, Honda will boost production of four-cylinder Accords in Marysville, and plans to cut Odyssey and Pilot production there by an additional 22,000 units.
“We are trying to use our plant flexibility to minimize the effects of the market going down and satisfy our customers’ desire for more cars and fewer trucks,” said Honda spokesman Ed Miller.
The production shifts won’t result in an increase in availability of the Accord in the United States -- Honda will import fewer from Japan -- but does mean that Honda will make a higher percentage of Accords in the United States.
For the first nine months of this year, 253,922 of the Accords sold in the Untied States, or 81.1%, were built in the United States, according to Autodata Corp.
“Our rough goal is to build domestically 80% of what we sell in the U.S.,” Miller said. “We've been a little below that in recent years, mainly because of the success of the Fit, but this will bring us back up to 80% or more.”
So far this year, Honda has sold 313,032 Accords through the end of September, up 2.4% from the same period last year. Overall industry sales in the United States were down 12.8% for the same period.
Earlier this year, Honda announced plans to transfer production of the Ridgeline truck to Alabama from Canada in early 2009.
Sales of the Honda Pilot have decreased 16.8% through September to 79,430, while Odyssey sales declined 14% to 112,041.
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http://www.freep.com/article/20081013/BUSINESS01/81013089
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