Nigeria becomes Honda’s assembly hub in Africa

The ongoing efforts of the federal government in setting up new assembly plants and resuscitating moribund assembly plants under the ongoing 10-year National Automotive Industrial Development Plan (NAIDP) as Nigeria is set to become the first country to assemble Honda cars in Africa. Stallion automobile group is the sole franchisee of Honda range of vehicles in Nigeria.

An important piece of news from Honda’s new chief executive officer, Takahiro Hachigo reveals that Nigeria would become the first African country to assemble Honda cars, with local assembly for the Accord to start sometime this month.

In other news, Takahiro said that Honda would start deliveries of its HF120 jet engines and Honda Jet light business jet aircrafts later this year. In his first official speech, Hachigo announced the company’s new plans for its six-region global operations, along with the future models to expect from the company.

Takahiro said that Honda would develop its matrix management system in each of the six-regions with the development of challenging and unique products so that each region’s production capacity could be expanded to focus on complete global operations.

Each of the six regions would be developed to increase production capacity and established sales, development and purchasing functions, allowing them to manufacture exclusive models tailored to suit each region.

The main headquarters would also be upgraded for better inter-regional relationships. An example of this would be the next-generation Civic which will be built in Europe and exported to the US, while the Jazz would be built in Japan and exported to Europe and America.

In the field of product development, the upcoming next-gen Civic would get a line-up of downsized turbo-charged engines, and a new platform. Takahiro also stated that, in the future, core products like the Accord and CR-V would undergo a full-model change in the future.

The new cars are expected to be more attractive that will come loaded with the latest tech, and will offer better competition in the market. He also said that by the end of the fiscal year 2015-16, the company would also launch the successor to the FCX Clarity in the Japanese market. In India, Honda is set to launch the new Accord sometime next year, and will initially only come with a petrol engine, with a possibility of getting a hybrid power-train in the future. The company is also developing a new 7-seater small SUV for the Indian market called the BR-V and is expected to showcase the model at the Auto Expo 2016. The SUV will be based on the same platform as the Mobilio and is expected to get the same engines as well, when launched next year.

MIKE OCHONMA