Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India has inaugurated its fourth manufacturing plant in Vithalapur, Gujarat, expanding its total manufacturing capacity to 5.8 million units per annum. The inauguration was graced by Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, Noriake Abe, Chief Operating Officer- Asia and Oceania Regional Operations, Shinji Aoyama, Operating Officer and Director and COO, Motorcycle Operations, Honda Motor Co, Keita Muramatsu, President & CEO, HMSI, and Toshinobu Motai, Chief Production Officer, HMSI, among others.
The £110 million 'Scooters Only' plant would manufacture the company's largest selling Activa and Dio models, and is a “green” manufacturing facility that would effectively use natural light, cutting down power bills by an about 21 per cent. V Sridhar, senior vice-president and director, Corporate Office Production, said, “Apart from one-third of the total plant area of 250 acre being a dedicated green zone, this scooters-only plant of Honda will be using a lot of natural light and LED lighting which will help cut the power bills by as much as 21 per cent.” The facility is located around 80 km from Ahmedabad. It will consume about seven mega watt of power to run operations and also have an integrated zero liquid discharge facility like the one that exists in Karnataka. “In Gujarat, about 40 per cent of the two-wheelers sold are scooters. Even after 15 years, the demand for Activa models has not gone down. We still have a back-order of 30,000 Activas and so we have decided to launch a scooters-only facility,” Sridhar said.
