Given US rates, Honda said Monday that he would change the production of one of his popular vehicles from Ontario to a United States factory and would postpone a plan of $ 11 billion to manufacture vehicles and electric batteries in Canada.
The announcement occurred less than a month after Honda denied a report in the Japanese media that President Trump’s tariffs would force him to go back in Canada.
He also raises a great challenge for Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, who won an impressive victory in the elections last month after portraying himself as the most appropriate leader to deal with President Trump and the commercial war between the two counters.
The United States has imposed a 25 percent rate to many Canadian cars and auto parts.
Honda’s executive director, Toshiro Mibe, said at a press conference in Japan that the decision to transfer the manufacture of the Utility CR-V vehicle to the United States was part of the company’s plans to “optimize” production to reduce the effects of tariffs.
He blamed the slow growth of the electric vehicle market for the decision to delay an expansion of $ 11 billion of the Ontario factory complex, which would have added the production of batteries and electric vehicles.
The expansion, which was supported by substantial financial incentives of the Governments of Canada and Ontario, was characterized last year by Justin Trudeau, the prime minister at that time, as the greatest investment by a car manufacturer in Canadian history. It was projected that it would use 1,000 people and was the piece of a series of movements backed by the government to change the Canadian automotive industry to electric vehicles.
The effect of the CR-V production movement was not known immediately. But, like all car assembly lines in Canada, most CR-VS made in Canada are sent to the United States.
Honda Canada did not immediately respond to a comment request. He currently employs about 4,200 people in his plant in Alliston, Ontario, which also builds civic silk and engines.
Mr. Carney’s office did not respond immediately to a request for comments on Honda’s decisions. He is ready to swear in his new cabinet on Tuesday.
Honda’s announcement is the last of a series of automotive industry movements to withdraw expansion plans in Canada after the imposition of tariffs by the United States.
Stellantis suspended the conversion of a factory into a suburb of Toronto to manufacture electric and gasoline jeeps. He has closed his plant in Windsor, Ontario, which manufactures Minivans and dodged the Muscle Cars, for a total of three weeks and is also reducing its production program daring the coming weeks.
The Canadian subsidiary of General Motors suspended the production of an electric commercial truck in Ontario. The Ford Canadian lonely assembly plant, in Oakville, Ontario, has been inactive for almost a year after the company left the plans to make electric vehicles there. Instead, the plant will start making gasoline trucks.
