Honda of Canada Manufacturing is canceling its traditional summer factory downtime at its Canadian plants in order to boost vehicle inventory as sales improve thanks to easing stay-at-home guidelines.
The automaker is eager to replenish inventory after its factories were idled for several weeks in accordance with government coronavirus rules.
Honda lost seven weeks of production from March 23 to May 11 as factories across North America shut down to reduce coronavirus transmission. Now it is adding production days on June 27, 29 and 30 that had previously been designated as days off for plant workers, the company said in an email to Automotive News in Detroit.
"With the auto market improving as stay-at-home orders begin to loosen nationally, Honda has seen a steady climb in customer traffic at our dealerships over the last few weeks. We are expecting a strong sales recovery this month and into the summer sales season," the company said.
"To provide our dealers with the vehicles they need, all Honda automobile, engine and transmission plants in the U.S. and Canada will run additional scheduled production on June 27 and June 29-30, which had previously been scheduled as downtime," the automaker said. Honda has U.S. factories in Alabama, Indiana and Ohio.
It builds the popular Honda Civic in Alliston, Ont.
