Honda to build Civic hybrid in Indiana, hire 300

Honda announced Tuesday that it is investing $40 million to increase annual production capacity by 50,000 units to 250,000 vehicles a year.

Honda says the Greensburg plant will start producing the Civic Hybrid next year.

The latest increase in production follows the launch of a second shift last fall that added about 1,000 jobs at the Greensburg facility. The plant has a total of roughly 2,000 employees.
Honda builds the traditional gas-powered and natural gas-powered versions of the Civic at the Indiana plant as well as the Acura ILX sedan.

“We’re getting to the point where in North America we can build the whole line of Honda products and that is a big step toward flexibility,” Rick Schostek, senior vice president of the company’s Honda of America Manufacturing unit, told reporters at an Automotive Press Association meeting in Detroit.

Honda has nine automobile assembly lines in seven plant sites in North America. Its annual capacity in the region is 1.63 million Honda and Acuras, which will expand to 1.92 million units in 2014.