Honda says it will expand production at its North America plants as it ramps up to its goal of selling "more than 2 million" vehicles in the region by 2016.
Speaking to Automotive News, Tetsuo Iwamura, CEO of American Honda, revealed that the Japanese automaker is prepared to crank up North American production in response to growing consumer demand. Honda operates factories in Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Honda has set the goal of boosting its global sales by 50 percent to 6 million units by 2016. In North America, Honda is eying an 18 percent increase to more than 2 million vehicles, which would outpace the overall market's predicted 15 percent expansion during the same period.
In order to help with that goal, Honda is currently building a new plant in Mexico. Scheduled to open its doors in 2014, the new plant will exclusively build small cars like the Fit compact. The plant will have the capacity to build 200,000 cars per year.
"If the market allows us, of course, we won't hesitate to expand capacity," Iwamura said.
Honda has already announced plans to increase production by 40,000 units at its Lincoln, Alabama plant, which makes the Odyssey, Pilot and Ridgeline. Honda has also indicated it could shift some hybrid production to the U.S. by mid-decade.Â
