Honda to end motorcycle production in Ohio
Workers at Marysville plant will get other jobs
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 10:00 AM
By Paul Wilson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
File photo
In July 1996, Honda celebrated the production of the millionth motorcycle at its Marysville factory.Honda will stop making motorcycles in Ohio in 2009 — 30 years after the plant in Marysville became the Japanese company’s first manufacturing operation in the United States.
The 450 employees who make motorcycles in Marysville will get other jobs with Honda in Ohio, where the automaker employs nearly 16,000.
Honda, which announced the move this morning, said it will build the motorcycles at a new plant in Kumamoto, Japan, which will open next year. Along with Marysville, an older plant in Japan will no longer make motorcycles.
“This was a complex decision tied to the important role that Honda in Ohio plays within our North American automobile operations,” Akio Hamada, president and chief executive of Honda of America, said in a statement. “We will focus our associates’ abilities on our goal to produce cars, light truck and engines in Ohio.”
No decision has been made about what to do with the 330,000-square-foot motorcycle building, but Honda said it could use it for auto production.
