Honda's third China plant to accommodate EV production
Honda plans to spend $436m building a third automobile production plant in China, which will be specifically designed to accommodate EV production. The plant will cover a 1.2m sq m area, will become operational in the first half of 2019 with a yearly production capability of 120,000 units. China is the world's largest market for clean-energy vehicles, including EVs, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles.
Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co., Ltd., a Honda automobile production and sales joint venture in China, plans to build a third automobile production plant to meet increasing demand from the continuously growing automobile market in China.

Dongfeng Honda plans to build the third plant on a 1.2 million-square-meter plot acquired by the company, located approximately 8 km southeast of the company’s first plant within Wuhan Economic & Technological Development District. With an investment of approximately 3 billion RMB (US$436 million), the new plant is scheduled to become operational in the first half of 2019, with annual production capacity of 120,000 units.

Moreover, this new plant will be designed with a concept to accommodate production of electrified automobiles, where demand is expected to expand in the coming years in the automobile market in China.

Since it began production and sales of CR-V in April 2004, Dongfeng Honda has continued enhancing its product lineup, including the Civic, since 2006, and the XR-V compact SUV, since 2015. With the introduction of the all-new Civic and GIENIA compact hatchback, Dongfeng Honda’s total sales for 2016 is expected to exceed 560,000 units.

The addition of the third plant will increase Dongfeng Honda’s overall annual production capacity to 600,000 units, which will increase Honda’s overall automobile production capacity in China to 1.25 million units, including 600,000 units of Guangqi Honda and 50,000 units of Honda Automobile (China) Co., Ltd., an export automobile production plant.