Honda to export more cars from North America than it imports within two years

Honda expects to send more North American-built cars to other countries by 2014 than it brings here each year from Japan.

"Quality for the world, made in America, has been an important Honda commitment for the past 25 years," Honda Motor President and Chief Executive Takanobu Ito told workers in Marysville, Ohio, in a recorded video autel auto scanner. "In the coming years, we will take on the challenge of helping even more customers around the world enjoy Honda products made in the USA."

The plant built an Accord sedan Wednesday that was the 1 millionth North American Honda made for export markets since 1987. The Accord will eventually be sold in South Korea.

This year, Honda expects to export about 100,000 vehicles from its plants in Ohio, Indiana, Alabama and Canada, coming close to an export record it set in 1994. That would be more than double 2011's exports. Still, it will import about 50,000 more cars from Japan than it will export.

With plans to increase U.S. production over the next two years, Honda says its exports will pass its imports by 2014.

Shifting exports to the United States from Japan makes good sense, trade experts said.

Though sales have improved dramatically this year, Honda is using less of its factories' capacities than it did before the Great Recession. The combination of new plants and plant expansions with lower sales left the company with more room to build cars than it needed, said Juscelino Colares, an international law professor at Case Western Reserve University.

"This slack in production capacity, in the presence of a lower U.S. dollar, means all of this capacity can start going abroad," Colares said.

Japanese automakers have struggled with a strong yen for several years. Because that country's currency is strong Maxidiag Fr704 Code Reader Bmw Mb Volvo Vw Opel Obd2, products exported from Japan are more expensive in Europe and North America. The relatively weak U.S. dollar makes exporting from this country more attractive.

Add to that free-trade deals reached in recent years with countries in South America and Asia, and U.S. production becomes more attractive, Colares said.

"It's a very favorable market for manufacturers," he added.

Robert M. Stern, a visiting professor of international economics at the University of California Berkley and a professor emeritus of the University of Michigan, called the development a positive sign for manufacturing in the United States in general.

"Not only are they going to export the cars, but a lot of the components that got into the assembly of the cars are produced in the United States," Stern said. "It helps expand the total manufacturing base of the United States."

Most of Honda's U.S. and Canadian exports go to Mexico and the Middle East. In the early 1990s, U.S. plants shipped significant numbers of cars to Japan, but those exports stopped about eight years ago.

The company said each of its North American plants export some vehicles to foreign markets TPMS service tool. Honda is building a new plant near its existing Marysville and East Liberty plants in Ohio to make the next generation of its Acura NSX supercar. Large numbers of that specialty vehicle will likely be exported to performance car enthusiasts worldwide.

	Latin America/ Caribbean	Japan	Asia/ Oceania	Europe	Middle East/ Africa	Mexico	Puerto Rico/ Guam and other	Total
1987			667					667
1988		6,650	2,375					9,025
1989		3,432	3,085					6,517
1990		12,022	2,566		1,697		2,025	18,310
1991		14,520	2,964	6,350	3,889		772	28,495
1992	85	22,921	17,200	6,943	4,969		393	52,511
1993	833	23,426	8,276	5,740	3,008		1,117	42,400
1994	6,829	52,091	5,308	34,063	2,858		3,249	104,398
1995	6,282	49,504	2,491	21,397	3,153	663	3,375	86,865
1996	7,199	44,039	2,108	19,719	2,110	869	4,993	81,037
1997	7,721	27,016	2,686	8,540	2,800	3,060	4,026	55,849
1998	5,677	10,723	8,263	8,279	6,681	6,397	4,354	50,374
1999	3,222	12,368	1,639	7,969	439	10,455	4,160	40,252
2000	2,918	6,113	140	2,993	463	11,952	4,611	29,190
2001	3,152	6,588	120	5,292	245	15,613	3,653	34,663
2002	1,788	3,708	0	1,219	343	14,613	3,714	25,385
2003	1,190	2,989	1	728	738	11,104	4,574	21,324
2004	1,339	276	1	566	431	7,646	4,723	14,982
2005	2,494	183	1	77	1,386	11,218	5,031	20,390
2006	4,573	45	451	0	1,886	18,368	3,178	28,501
2007	4,311	39	561	0	1,978	24,676	3,420	34,985
2008	5,431	23	257	6,178	5,562	26,647	3,436	47,534
2009	3,158	35	1,120	191	3,118	10,156	2,198	19,976
2010	6,201	29	358	179	5,014	17,715	3,453	32,949
2011	4,887	2	364	1,695	16,532	18,058	3,512	45,050
Total	79,290	298,742	63,002	138,118	69,300	209,210	73,967	931,629