As a global wave of consolidation sweeps through the automotive industry, Honda Motor Co. is taking the road less traveled in its search for greater market share.
Though this may seem a bold move for independent Honda, which only recently replaced Nissan Motor Co. as the No. 2 automaker in the nation, Hiroyuki Yoshino, Honda's president and chief executive officer, is confident annual group sales of 3 million cars can be achieved in fiscal 2003.
"Once two new plants -- one in Britain and the other in Alabama -- begin full operation by 2003, we will have a manufacturing capacity of 3 million units. That's why we set the target," Yoshino, 60, explained in an interview with The Japan Times.