Is Honda a Joint Venture Car?
2 Answers
Honda is a joint venture car, divided into Dongfeng Honda and GAC Honda. Dongfeng Honda is a collaboration between China's Dongfeng Group and Japan's Honda, while GAC Honda is a partnership between Guangzhou Automobile and Honda. Honda Motor Co., Ltd. is the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer, and its automobile production and scale also rank among the top ten car manufacturers globally. The "H" is the graphic trademark for Honda cars and motorcycles, representing the first capital letter of "HONDA" in Japanese. The letters "HM" in the Honda car logo stand for "HONDA MOTOR," with eagle wings above these letters. Honda's current product line mainly consists of four major businesses: automobiles, motorcycles, power products, and aircraft. The automobile business is composed of the core brand Honda and the luxury brand Acura. Honda's major development milestones in China: December 1994: Dongfeng Honda Automobile Parts Co., Ltd. (an auto parts production company) was established; November 1997: Signed a basic agreement for passenger car joint ventures (Guangzhou Passenger Car Project) with Guangzhou Automobile Group and Dongfeng Motor Corporation; July 1998: Guangzhou Honda Automobile Co., Ltd. and Dongfeng Honda Engine Co., Ltd. were established; July 2003: Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co., Ltd. was established; September 2003: Honda Automobile (China) Co., Ltd. was established; August 2004: Honda Production Technology (China) Co., Ltd. was established; September 2005: Honda Automobile Parts Manufacturing Co., Ltd. was established; November 2013: Honda R&D Technologies (China) Co., Ltd. was established; January 7, 2016: GAC Honda established GAC Honda Automobile Sales Co., Ltd.
As a veteran mechanic with 20 years of experience, I've tightened countless Honda screws. This issue has two sides: Honda itself is a long-established Japanese automaker, but 90% of the Hondas running on Chinese roads are joint-venture products. GAC Honda and Dongfeng Honda, these two factories, use Japanese technical drawings for domestic assembly and production. For popular models like the Accord and Civic, key engine components may be imported, but parts like doors and seats are locally sourced. Unlike purely imported Lexus vehicles, joint-venture cars save on tariffs and have cheaper parts. However, it's worth noting that some car owners have found that models with higher localization rates indeed have less durable chassis bushings compared to their Japanese-made counterparts.
