Honda will bring next-gen Civic Hatchback production to North America
Your inner Type R fanatic can breathe a sigh of relief.
For its 10th-gen Civic , Honda moved to a global platform that allowed us Yanks to finally take a crack at the Civic Type R -- a car that proved to exceed our lofty expectations. When news broke that Honda may shutter the UK plant where it's built, concern started to spread. But now, some news might send that concern back to the ether.
Honda will bring North American Civic Hatchback production to North America, Automotive News reports, citing confirmation from Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo. "Given our efforts to optimize production allocation and production capacity on a global scale, we have concluded that we will produce the Civic for North America in North America," Hachigo told AN.
This is part of a greater shift in where Honda builds its global vehicles. It will end production of the current Civic Hatchback, including the Type R, in the UK and Turkey in 2021. Production will shift to Japan and North America, likely coinciding with the introduction of the next-generation Civic Hatch. Other variants of the US-spec Civic are manufactured in Indiana and Ontario, Canada.
But the commonly assumed reason for closing the UK plant, which supplies the US with its Civic Hatchbacks , isn't the real reason. Brexit may be on everybody's minds, but Honda said in previous interviews that Brexit isn't actually the reason. Rather, according to AN's report, a new trade pact between Europe and Japan has made it smarter for Honda to just ship the cars from Japan to Europe.
The Civic Hatchback may have been doomed in the US, had buyers not beaten Honda's sales expectations. According to an email from the automaker, the Civic Hatchback's variants comprise 20 percent of Honda's Civic sales volume, more than the automaker honestly expected. It appears that not everybody is sold on the idea of crossovers , and the extra versatility of a hatchback may keep some Civic buyers from jumping ship to something taller.
