After 30 Years In U.S., Honda Achieves Full Citizenship

Honda is the most American of the Japanese carmakers, manufacturing about 85 percent of the vehicles it sells here in North American factories. But two-thirds of the models sold in the U.S.  are still developed in Japan.

That’s been changing over time, however, as engineers at Honda’s Research and Development facility in Ohio have begun to take on more responsibility. At first, they were assigned to develop different body styles of cars Japan had already engineered, like a wagon version of the Honda Accord or a coupe version of the Civic compact. Over time, they took on development of Acura models as well as light-trucks such as the Honda Pilot SUV and Odyssey minivan.

“It’s been a step-by-step process,” said Erik Berkman, president of Honda R&D Americas, at an industry conference in northern Michigan. “It takes a long time to transplant the culture, beliefs and know-how of a company into new soil and then to execute it consistently and at a high level.”

But now the Americans in Ohio have earned the task of developing two of Honda’s most important future cars: the next-generation NSX supercar and Honda Civic. “I am not saying the scope of our activities and experience is on par with R&D operations in Japan that were established more than 50 years ago,” Berkman said. “But as an organization, our U.S. facilities and the skill level of our engineers have achieved full citizenship in R&D which has real value to Honda as a global organization.”

It makes sense: North America is Honda’s largest market by far, with about 34 percent of its global sales occurring in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The company ought to be developing cars like the NSX and Civic here.

Both cars are crucial to Honda for different reasons. The NSX is an exotic halo car that showcases the best of Honda engineering, performance and reliability. After suffering a bit of a confidence slump in the past year or two, Honda needs to regain some excitement. The Civic compact is its best-seller worldwide, but the current version, introduced for the 2012 model year, was met with some disappointment. Honda scrambled to make improvements for 2013, but a complete makeover won’t happen for another four years.

The Civic is still the best-selling small car in America, but Honda knows it missed the mark. “If the perception is that we aren’t winning in the marketplace, we aren’t happy,” said Berkman. “We all know that second place is the first loser.  So we have some work to do.”

In the meantime, though, the Japanese maker is hoping this fall’s launch of the next-generation 2013 Honda Accord, the “most-sculpted Accord ever,” will rekindle America’s love affair with Hondas.

Source;
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2012/08/08/after-30-years-in-u-s-honda-achieves-full-citizenship/