August 28, 2004
REMEMBER THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE
Honda marks 25 years of manufacturing in United States (John Porretto, National Post, August 28th, 2004)
A quarter century ago, Honda Motor Co. would have been on few lists of companies poised to alter the American automotive industry.Recognized more for motorcycles than for cars, Honda was Japan's fifth-largest automaker at the time, relatively small and unheralded in a market dominated by Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co.
Facing an uncertain future, founder Soichiro Honda decided in the late 1970s to invest heavily in manufacturing facilities in the United States, looking to join German-automaker Volkswagen as the only foreign transplants building vehicles on American soil.
Honda's venture was considered risky - even a make-or-break proposition - given its size and standing, but the company never wavered. The resulting operations in central Ohio were the start of a revolution that would far surpass VW's endeavor, which ended in 1988, and change the landscape of American carmaking.
Industry observers say Honda's flexible and efficient manufacturing systems - which were followed in the United States by Nissan and Toyota - caused America's Big Three automakers to take notice and helped foster quality improvements industrywide.
One of the most irrational sights in modern politics is to see the left rally around the plaintive whines of inefficient businesses trying to avoid foreign competition by pulling patriotic heartstrings. This happens frequently in Canada, where artists, academics and left-wing politicians rally to the cause of protecting struggling companies which are suddenly transformed from greedy exploiters to guardians of the distinct national heritage. Fortunately for the welfare of Canadians, they rarely succeed.
But they do succeed in Europe and Japan, which are both inclined to identify the ownership of businesses with the national interest and make foreign access to markets and enterprise ownership difficult. The United States is the only large and powerful country which largely abjures this damaging line of thinking, one reason it ranks first along with a group of smallish, exporting countries in prosperity and competitiveness.
Posted by Peter Burnet at August 28, 2004 10:28 AMI live in Central Ohio, within 30 miles of the Honda plant. The last two cars I have bought, are Accords built there. They are great cars.
I can't decide which one I like better the 2002 or the 2003. The 2003 is faster and handles better, but the 2002 is lighter and more ergonomic. In the near future, when I have given these two cars to the kids or something like that, I am lusting after the new 2005 Accura RL.
I am about to sell the last Ford I bought, a 1999 Mercury Mystique LS for about 30% of what I paid for it. I don't think I will have to take that kind of beating on the Hondas.
P.S. The Merc runs good and only has 42K mi. anybody want it?
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at August 28, 2004 11:58 AMBest car I ever owned was a 1985 Civic CRX.
Posted by: Mike Morley at August 28, 2004 12:15 PMI owned a 1993 Honda Civic DX hatchback for ten years and close to 150,000 miles. There really wasn't very much Japanese about it at all, since it was built in Canada. My current vehicle is a 2003 Hyundai Accent 4-door which I bought for less than I paid for that Civic DX, and which has stood up very well so far (I just had the first annual tuneup today and it only needed a new set of spark plugs). Gas mileage isn't as good as the Civic but not many cars have mileage like the Civic.
Posted by: Joe at August 28, 2004 1:17 PMWe're on our third Ford in a row and very pleased with it. I thank Honda.
Posted by: Peter B at August 28, 2004 3:37 PMOf course, one of the major reasons Honda and other Japanese auto-manufacturers opened plants in the US was to circumvent rising protectionism. It just didn't happen out of the blue. The same thing happened to a lesser extent with Japanese opening plants in the UK to sell within Europe.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at August 28, 2004 4:21 PMTrue enough, Chris, but they have stayed.
If you read Toyota's celebratory 50th anniversary history of itself, you'll be able to trace Toyota's reaction to local content rules in places like Africa, Indonesia.
The Japanese shipped 'knockdown kits' to be bolted together in, say, Djakarta.
The intent of the importing countries was to bootstrap their own industrial capacity and labor force.
As those countries, for various reasons, dropped their local content laws, Toyota did not stay in any of them, building cars with that mindless but cheap labor Orrin so admires.
They closed 'em, preferring to pay Japanese labor in Japan much higher rates.
That the Japanese stayed in the US (ditto German chemical manufacturers) reveals a divide.