Thai Flood: Honda Plant Pulled Out Of the Water, Dead
Honda’s plant in Thailand had been submerged for months. Now that the flood waters have finally retreated, Honda assesses the damage. The plant is a near write-off.
“The restoration work will almost be equal to making a plant from scratch,” a Honda executive told The Nikkei [sub]. Honda decided to completely rebuild the plant located in the Rojana Industrial Park in Ayutthaya Province, central Thailand, at a cost of around $650 million.
Honda was the only Japanese automaker that was directly hit by the flood, and it was hit severely. Other carmakers in Thailand and around the world experienced outages due to waterlogged suppliers.
As a result, Honda is looking at spending more money to restore operations in Thailand than any other Japanese company. The plant has an annual production capacity of 240,000 units.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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The margin on the cars the new plant produces will pay for it in about 2 years. I feel sorry for them, but financially it's not that big of a loss.
Will there be anything on the cars that are salvageable ? Wheels and tires? Or will all of them need to be destroyed for Insurance purposes?
I wonder if Honda is under water on the payments on this building. D'oh!
New Orleans. Emotion supersedes logic. Build below water level. Mississippi River alone can flood the place. "Oh no, can't relocate!!!!!" Sick society. Sick culture. But, that's "par for the course." Idiotic humans rebuild where previous calamities caused mayhem. Aside volcanoes. Astride active earthquake faults. Over and over. Such a foolish emotion-laden species. Assuredly to be declared "wanting in the balance" and removed by whatever galactic organization wants to remove pestilence before it spreads... and rightly so. Just hope they do it quickly. I hate pain.