2006 Civic made in Japan from 70% US Parts?
 

According to my sticker, it says final assembly Japan; Parts 80% US Content, 15% Japan and engine made in Japan (which is part of the 15% count).

I was surprised-is Honda in the U.S. sending back partially completed Civics made here and then reimporting the Hybrids?

Does anyone know if the non-Hybrid Civics are made in the U.S., Canada & Mexico?

Thanks,

Michael

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

Last I heard, most (all?) non-hybrid Civics for North America are built in Marysville, OH. Engines come mostly from Canada, and chassis from Kentucky.

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

Based on mmmrmnhrm's post, I think Honda must ship the parts or even completed shells from Ohio to Japan for finally assembly and drivetrain installation (which makes sense considering the complexities of the IMA).

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

I hope that is not how it works. Being shipped to Japan and back would offset much of the Hybrid's energy savings. Sort of like buying bamboo flooring because of its sustainability, but then learning that it is shipped 12,000 miles by boat to get here.

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

Unfortunately, I think mickster's right, which might explain why i get people complaining about how hybrids don't actually help anything over their lifecycle. I know Honda does ship an awful lot of soybeans back in car containers that would otherwise be empty, but for as much US content as these suckers have, they probably are shipping chassis, body panels, seats, and wheels/tires over to JPN for final assembly.

(edit: I seem to have run against a language filter, though I don't remember having put any naughty words in)

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

Well in any event, 80% of its parts are made in North America and final assembly is in Japan. Remember however, many of those parts are shipped to Japan as final export for assembly that stays in Japan.

If you look at the overall cost of shipping a ship that would otherwise be half full, filling it with Hybrids makes sense, even if they are coming back here. Plus the efficiencies of large scale shipping keep energy costs reasonable. (Air shipping is so much more expensive than ship because of the fuel and small capacities. Boats of course can be made huge and run on diesel with pretty good fuel consumption).

Maybe Honda Marine will develop a new Hybrid Ship engine that will generate energy from the natural swaying of the ship at sea-sort of like an automatic watch that generates energy (those Casio and Seiko Kinetics)?

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

Is it possible that the hybrid car parts could still be mostly made in Japan? Is the 80/15 breakdown for all Civics, hybrid and regular, or just for the hybrid model? It wasn't clear from my car sticker.

Aneil

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

Like Aneil, I took that to mean that if you averaged all of the Civics sold in the US, 80% of the parts would be from the U.S., not that 80% of the HCH2 specifically was from here.

I don't recall the specific wording, but I recall thinking it was a bit vague. Something like "this product line", rather than "this car".

I would find it hard to believe that they're shipping body parts to Japan for final assembly. Honda's U.S. plants are land-locked. The Canadian ones aren't really any easier (you'd have to ship along the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic, then go around).

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

Each sticker is unique to that car (really to that trim) since some manufacturers used to build cars in multiple plants. In fact the parts content is pretty accurate for that car so it's not the whole line.

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

I did in fact confirm with Honda that 80% of the parts come from the U.S. and the final assembly is in Japan and that it strictly applies to the Civic Hybrid.

Michael:lightbulb

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

There's this wonderful invention known as the "railroad." Perhaps you've heard of it. Along with that is another neat thing called "Multi-mode transport," where the same container starts off attached to a truck, is lifted off and placed on a rail car, only to be stacked 20 units high on a ship two days later.

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

No need to be a smartass. :P

I'll believe you Mickster, but the sticker does say "For Vehicles in This Carline" it's 70% US/Canadian, 15% Japan. Below that, it says "For This Vehicle" final assembly point is Japan.

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

That was not me being the smartass (check who sent it) :angel:

In fact I did check with Honda and they had to go check, but the Civic Hybrid is considered one carline, the Civic EX another, Civic Si another and so on as the labels go.

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

Okay, I'm glad we got the parts content issue settled, and now we can all go back to being our regularly civil (Civic) selves.

I know about railroads & multimodal transport, but assumed that they would still manufacture parts in Japan. I guess American Honda is just doing its bit to restore our trade balance!

Aneil

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

Me? Civil? Must be dreaming :) Nah, I was just in one of my moods, brought on by the fact that it's been raining just about every day for the past three weeks straight (and costing me about 4mpg). I'm not sure just how much the back-and-forth of the car parts and finished cars affects the trade balance. It's entirely possible that that part of it is more or less a wash. What does help are the soybeans we send over, since that's a direct "We grow, you buy" transaction.

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

I remember when we (US) had legislated some trade barriers and foreign (Japenese) car companies had to produce "X" number of cars in the U.S. to mitigate import taxes. Perhaps this is in a similar vein - e.g. perhaps we have some quotas around parts being made in the U.S.

Other than that the only other reason I could see is that Honda wanted to have a tighter grip on the technology until it met some internal metrics for quality. If that's true than I guess we are at that point since it seems like the Camry hybrid will be produced in Tennessee later this year.


Dan

Re: 2006 Civic made in Japan from 80% US Parts?
 

Well, you know, we caucasians are so tall, our eyes too far away from what we're working on.