Honda to end vehicle production in Swindon in July 2021
- Japanese carmaker Honda, the sixth-largest carmaker in the world behind GM and Hyundai-Kia, with 4.34 million vehicles sold in 2020, has seen its influence diminish considerably in Europe over the years. From 335,000 sales in 2007, volumes fell to 150,000 units in 2011 and then 80,000 in 2020. This significant and inexorable drop in Honda sales can be attributed on one hand to a limited range of models on the European market, often not very competitive. However another fact has played a role in this situation: the growing disinterest of the Japanese carmaker for the European market, while its sales increased in China and the United States, and remained at a good level in its origin market, Japan.
- Honda had the Swindon plant in Great Britain as early as the 1980s, following a request by the government to open up to Japanese carmakers in order to offset the agony of the British Leyland group, at this time the largest British carmaker. Honda opened another plant in 1997, in Turkey (Gebze) in order to complete its industrial tool in this region.
- A large part of the Honda sold in Europe came from these two plants, but since the end of production of the Jazz (in 2015) and the CRV (in 2018), only the Civic remained and this could not guarantee the sustainability of the two European production plants.
- Honda had indeed announced last year that it would completely withdraw from Europe before the end of 2021. Today, the carmaker confirmed that the Swindon plant will close in July 2021, and the Gebze plant few months later. Honda said the Swindon plant had been bought by a logistician company named Panattoni.
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