Honda Global to focus more on electrification and find solutions to roadblocks, claims Brexit not the reason
With emission standards getting stringent, Honda Global will be restructuring manufacturing giving strong importance to electric cars. The entire global car manufacturing portfolio is to have more electric vehicles in order to combat rising temperatures. Honda’s UK manufacturing has made an announcement to its 3,500 employees that the Swindon facility will close by 2021. This plant made 150,000 units a year. Another plant Honda Turkiye will be stopping producing Civic sedan by 2021, of which it made 38,000 cars a year.
Katsushu Inoue, President Honda Motor Europe states that current global electrification of cars has led to this Honda Global restructuring strategy. This will be a tough decision as a large number of employees work at both these facilities creating world-class Honda products. The usual suspect Brexit has been dismissed by Greg Clark who is the business secretary. This move does point as a threat to the UK automobile industry. A lot of jobs are at stake and the transition will be difficult. This is a global move so let’s just say Honda India has no such looming threat. In fact it’ll probably become a hub for researching lower cost EVs for developing markets.
I as a journalist and mostly as a human find this devastating as a lot of jobs will be lost, albeit in a different country. But electrification is inevitable as we are sitting on the crux of global change. However ceasing production off two manufacturing facilities responsible for 90% production for EU and US markets does seem too soon for a global manufacturer. More will be revealed as to the real reason behind this shutdown as UK media uncovers.
