Honda to Halt Production in Canada and U.S.

Honda has announced that most of its North American plants will halt production next week due to supply chain issues. All will be impacted in some way.

Workers were notified of the decision on Monday.

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The Japanese automaker gave a number of reasons including “the impact from COVID-19, congestion at various ports, the microchip shortage and severe winter weather over the past several weeks."

A spokesman for Honda told Reuters that "the timing and length of production adjustments could change." He couldn’t specify the volume of vehicles impacted, however.

The Car Guide contacted Honda Canada to learn more and we’ll update this story if and when we get an answer.

Honda operates three plants in Alliston, Ontario. Two of them build Civic and CR-V models, while the third makes four-cylinder engines for these vehicles.

Including both Canada and the U.S., Honda typically produces about 30,000 vehicles a week according to AutoForecast Solutions, which is a considerable volume. In addition to Ontario, the production issues are hitting Honda plants in Ohio, Alabama and Indiana. Mexican operations remain on track.

The leading cause is likely the ongoing chip shortage across the industry. A number of automakers including Ford, Stellantis and General Motors have had to idle plants—or make some tough compromises—because they don’t have enough of these key components in their stocks to run various electronic systems.

GM recently said it expects to lose about $2 billion USD this year as a direct result.