Honda kicked off a $70 million, 200,000-square-foot expansion project at its transmission plant in Russells Point, Ohio, that will create more than 100 full-time jobs and increase the facility’s capabilities to manufacture Honda’s latest transmission technologies. In addition, Honda Transmission of America Manufacturing Inc. announced that it will add 60 jobs for the start of a second shift in early 2011 and that an additional $25 million in renovation projects are under way to increase plant flexibility. The new production line is expected to be operational in 2012.

The expansion project includes installation of a third assembly line, along with other new operations for the production of Honda's most advanced automatic transmissions and relocation of the plant's two existing assembly lines into the new manufacturing space. It also will increase the plant’s capacity to more than 1 million automatic transmissions – up from 800,000 – annually. The new second shift will produce automatic transmissions for the all-new 2012 Civic that goes on sale in spring 2011.