Honda to manufacture Ridgeline pickup at Alabama plant
Honda will begin making the Ridgeline pickup at its Alabama assembly plant next year, another sign of activity for a booming state auto manufacturing industry that has seen its jobs increase 80 percent since 2001.
The Japanese automaker informed employees of the new production plans during meetings at its Lincoln plant. Honda now builds two vehicles at the facility: the Odyssey minivan and the Pilot sport utility, which has been redesigned.
The Ridgeline, introduced in 2005, is Honda’s only pickup, and has several features that set it apart from other trucks in its class, said Jim Hossack, a consultant with California-based market researcher AutoPacific.
Those features include a cab and bed that are one unit, as opposed to separate, and a small bed with a useful trunk at the bottom. The truck is relatively expensive to build and costly to buy, as far as its peers go, but it offers an unusually good ride, Hossack said.
“It’s more carlike, less trucklike,” he said. “To some that’s an advantage and to some it’s not.”
Last year, Honda sold 42,795 Ridgelines, a 15 percent drop from its 2006 sales totals. Prices for the 2008 model start at $28,000.
Honda’s $1.4 billion Lincoln plant, which employs 4,500 people, is the sole global source of both the Odyssey and the Pilot. Last year, workers set a record by producing 313,957 of the vehicles, surpassing the plant’s announced capacity of 300,000.
Mark Morrison, a spokesman for Honda’s Lincoln plant, said the company does not talk about future production plans.
“We’re currently making the Odyssey and Pilot at our facility in Alabama. That’s our focus right now. We’re also gearing up to produce an all-new Pilot,” he said.
A mix of products:
The plant is built on Honda’s global flexible manufacturing system, which means its two assembly lines can accommodate different products.
An example of that flexibility can be found at the Ridgeline’s current home in Canada, where it is built alongside the Honda Civic and the Acura MDX.
A mix of products:
The plant is built on Honda’s global flexible manufacturing system, which means its two assembly lines can accommodate different products.
An example of that flexibility can be found at the Ridgeline’s current home in Canada, where it is built alongside the Honda Civic and the Acura MDX.
The addition of the Ridgeline would expand Alabama’s automaking line-up to eight vehicles.
Along with Honda’s Odyssey and Pilot, other state products are the Mercedes-Benz M-Class sport utility, R-Class crossover and GL-Class full-sized sport utility, all made in Vance, and the Sonata sedan and Santa Fe sport utility, which Hyundai produces in Montgomery.
A new survey shows Alabama’s automaking industry, comprising assembly plants, suppliers and other related businesses, continues to thrive, with 134,226 direct and indirect jobs that generated a $5.2 billion payroll in 2007. In 2001, there were 75,788 total jobs in the industry.
The survey is to be presented today at a quarterly meeting of the Alabama Automotive Manufacturers Association.
Despite the growth, the survey also indicates opportunities to spread the wealth in the sector along a wide swath of counties lining the Alabama-Mississippi line, particularly those in the Black Belt.
Counties including Lamar, Fayette, Pickens, Greene, Sumter, Hale, Marengo, Choctaw, Washington, Clarke, Wilcox, Monroe and Baldwin do not have automotive plants, the survey shows.
But possibilities are on the horizon.
On the northern end of that swath, the future Interstate 22 that will link Birmingham and Memphis is seen as prime property for automotive suppliers.
At one end of the corridor, Toyota is building an assembly plant near Tupelo, Miss., and automotive supplier Magna International Inc. is eyeing the Guin area for a contract assembly plant.
To the south, near the Black Belt, there is a site spanning the Alabama-Mississippi line that has been marketed to major economic development prospects. It is one of several sites in the state that has been identified as able to handle another auto assembly plant.
Tuscaloosa No. 1:
Now, Tuscaloosa County, home of the Mercedes-Benz assembly plant, has the most automotive jobs in the state, with 7,915. It is followed by Honda’s base of Talladega County, with 6,318 jobs. Montgomery County, with the Hyundai plant, rounds out the top three, with 5,513 jobs.
The survey, conducted for AAMA by researchers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, included 285 plants.
The 48,457 direct jobs reported in 2007 represent an 8 percent increase over those counted in the 2005 survey and an 80 percent increase since AAMA’s surveys began in 2001.
E-mail: dkent@bhamnews.com
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