USAHonda announced on 9 November that it will invest $3 billion in a new auto plant in Central Ohio. The site is on land between the company’s existing East Liberty and Marysville auto plants. Honda plans capacity for 240,000 vehicles a year and more than 2,000 new jobs, with production expected to begin in 2029, pending final government approvals.
What Honda has said about the plant
Honda describes the plant as having the flexibility to build hybrid and gasoline vehicles as well as battery-electric ones. It will be the fourth Honda auto plant in Ohio and the ninth Honda auto-related production facility in the United States. Honda’s release says only that multiple new models are under development at its US R&D centre for the plant; it names none, and it gives no city, township or county for the site. Without a confirmed location we have not created a plant page for it.
Honda puts its US auto production capacity at about 1.3 million vehicles a year once the plant is running.
The engine and transmission plants
The same announcement covers two existing Ohio plants. The Anna Engine Plant, which Honda calls the largest Honda engine plant in the world, is retooling an existing line for a next-generation 4-cylinder Atkinson-cycle engine, intended for future compact and midsize vehicles built in North America. It is also expanding an on-site parts consolidation centre, due to start operating next year.
At the Honda Transmission Plant-Ohio, Honda has begun converting a transmission line into a second hybrid-system line, and expects to raise its hybrid-system capacity by 250 percent in the coming years. The plant already builds the two-motor hybrid system used in US-built Honda vehicles including the CR-V, Accord and Civic, and is preparing for a next-generation hybrid system that goes into production next year.
