With the opening of the No.2 Line, Honda looks forward to assembling more vehicles for the growing Malaysian market, particularly in the small models and hybrid segment, which has seen steady growth over the past couple of years. Currently Honda Malaysia assembles the City, Civic, CR-V, Accord and both the Jazz Petrol and Hybrid variants at its Pegoh Plant. Honda has enhanced its overall operations in Malaysia in the past couple of years with a new parts warehouse, new test track facility, new Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) Centre and recently, changing its logistic to rail in order to be more efficient. The Green Factory concept is actively pursued at the Pegoh Plant; high efficiency equipment have been installed, and lean processes are adopted to lower power consumption. Numerous green initiatives such as recycle and reuse energy and water efficiency were implemented in the buildings and equipment. These efforts support Honda’s global environment target of reducing CO2 emissions by 30% by 2020. Yoichiro Ueno, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Honda Malaysia, commented that “In order to achieve more affordable prices for Malaysian customers, Honda Malaysia is targeting to enhance the localization of the component parts from the previous 30-40% to over 70% in the near future. This can be achieved with a combination of hard work of our associates to implement advanced technologies and the expansion of component suppliers.”
On that notion, it looks like Honda Malaysia has a head start with the new revised NAP. With Honda Malaysia’s aligned well with the new NAP’s aim to make Malaysia as an environmental friendly car hub, it looks like more Honda hybrid cars will be gracing Malaysia’s road in the years to come. Local assembled Honda CR-Z for the Malaysian market perhaps?