Dongfeng Honda Automobile Company

Dongfeng Honda Automobile Company is a joint venture between the Dongfeng Motor Corporation and Honda Motor Company. It produces the Honda CR-V for sales in China.

Facilities

The plant is located in Wuhan, in the central province of Hubei. The current facility is 50,000 square metres and employs 930 workers. The new expansion in 2008 will increase the plant size to 181,000 square metres and total work force of 2,800.

The 50-50 joint venture was established in 2003 for US$ 98 million in capital. It established various stages of manufacturing in China:

* welding
* painting
* engine production
* assembly
* vehicle testing

Another plant in Guangzhou, Guangdong province is operated by Honda Automobile (China) Company, which is a separate joint-venture (55% Honda, 25% Guangzhou Auto Group, 10% Honda Motor China Investments, and 10% Dongfeng Motor Group), and produces 240,000 vehicles annually, primarily for export.

Growth

A further investment would allow for production increase to approximately 120,000 vehicles by early 2006 (up from the current 30,000). The cost of this expansion is pegged at 2.8 billion yuan or US$ 340 million.

These joint ventures allows Honda to control their name in the Chinese market and offer a cheaper place to manufacture cars in Asia.

Vehicles

The Dongfeng plant manufactures the two versions of the Honda CRV SUV:
* 2.0 and 2.4

Both vehicles sport the i-VTEC engine platform. There are future plans to manufacture the Honda Civic in China.

Imports

All other Honda models are imported into China by Honda Automobile (China) Company, a unit of Dongfeng Honda Automobile Company.

Dealers

These vehicles and imports are available at 44 dealers across China.

External links

* [http://www.wdhac.com.cn/index/ Dongfeng Honda Auto Company Official site]
* [http://english1.peopledaily.com.cn/200411/08/print20041108_163180.html Dongfeng-Honda automobile joint venture announces bigger annual production capacity]