TOKYO — Honda Motor Co. is considering switching some car production from Mexico and Canada to the U.S., aiming for 90 percent of cars sold in the country to be made locally in response to new U.S. auto tariffs, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Japan’s second-biggest automaker by sales plans to increase U.S. vehicle production by as much as 30 percent over two to three years in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to put a 25 percent levy on imported vehicles, Nikkei said.
Honda said there are no plans to move production to the U.S.
“We can confirm that our Canadian manufacturing facility in Alliston, Ont., will operate at full capacity for the foreseeable future and no changes are being considered at this time,” Honda Canada Corporate Communications Director Ken Chiu said in a statement to Automotive News Canada.
In the weeks before the new U.S. levy went into effect, Reuters had already reported that Honda plans to make its next-generation Civic hybrid in Indiana, instead of Mexico, to avoid potential tariffs.
Read more: Live updates on tariff news and impacts
Interactive map: Auto manufacturing sites in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico
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The U.S. was Honda’s biggest market last year, accounting for nearly 40 percent of global sales. The automaker sold 1.4 million vehicles, including Acura models, in the U.S. last year. It imported about two-fifths of those cars from Canada or Mexico.
Honda posted a 5 percent rise in U.S. sales to 351,577 vehicles in the first three months of this year.
The company will move production of the CR-V crossover from Canada to the U.S. and that of the HR-V crossover from Mexico to the world’s biggest economy, according to Nikkei.
To increase output, Honda is considering hiring more U.S. workers, the newspaper said. Such a step would make it possible for Honda to switch to a three-shift system from two-shift work and extend production to weekends, Nikkei added.
