Honda held an official groundbreaking ceremony for its $550 million automobile plant Monday in Indiana.
Honda Manufacturing of Indiana, LLC (HMIN) will employ approximately 2,000 people and will produce the Civic sedan when mass production begins in fall 2008.
The company first announced plans to build the new Indiana plant in June of last year. Site preparation for the new plant is complete and basic construction has already begun on a 1,700-acre tract in Decatur County, Indiana, near the town of Greensburg, 50 miles southeast of Indianapolis.
HMIN will be Honda's seventh auto plant in North America and should produce 200,000 annually at full production.
Major production processes performed at the Indiana plant will include stamping, welding, painting, plastic injection molding, sub-assembly and final assembly operations. Mass production of the 2009-model Civic sedan is scheduled to begin in fall 2008.
Honda began U.S. production operations in 1979 and began building cars in the U.S. in 1982.