WUHAN, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co. Ltd., a joint venture between China's Dongfeng Motor Corp. and Japan's Honda Motor Co., announced Friday its third factory had gone into operation in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
The new factory will initially be capable of producing 120,000 cars a year and its annual capacity will reach 240,000 in the future when needed, said Natsume Tatsuya, general manager of Dongfeng Honda.
Moreover, the cutting-edge factory is designed to accommodate production of electric cars to meet rising demand in the world's largest new-energy vehicle market, where domestic and global automakers are vying to woo buyers with new-energy cars.
Dongfeng Honda sold 720,000 vehicles in 2018, a 0.8-percent rise from a year earlier, compared with a 4.1-percent slump in the Chinese car market in the same period. The sales figure of the venture far overshot its annual capacity limits of 512,000 units at the two factories in Wuhan, which have been in production since 2004 and 2012.
Sales of Dongfeng Honda witnessed a year-on-year surge of 19.8 percent in the first quarter of 2019, thanks to a continuing popularity of the CR-V sports utility vehicle and the Civic sedan, according to the company.
Zheng Chunkai, executive vice manager of Dongfeng Honda, said though the overall market slowed in China, the decision to build this new factory was based on Chinese consumers' trust in Honda cars and the factory would hopefully help his company achieve its sales target of 1 million cars a year.
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