Honda’s Y50 Billion Minicar Plan
Honda is throwing a lot of money at the minicar market – Y50 billionish = $5 billion.
The carmaker wants to be rolling out another 240,000 cars by 2010.
Engines will go into production next year and cars the following year.
Robots working on line and a cutting-edge distribution system are expected to reduce costs by 30%. That's, um, production costs, not the price of the car.
Honda is number three in Japan in the minicar market.
Japan's annual minicar sales topped 2 million autos last year – about 36% of all sales. 10 years ago, minicars made up 24% of total sales.
Would you own a minicar?
