Honda Jazz: to Japan and back again

Honda Australia happily sourced the Jazz model from Thailand before the flood in north Bangkok last year forced the company to cut into production of the hatch in Japan.

Apart from added expenses due to the shift in location, Honda’s plant in Japan is already stretching capacity limitations so the local arm is keen to ensure the measure is temporary. Sales of Thai-built Jazz models are expected to resume in Australia by the end of June.

The Japan-built Jazz required homologation before going on sale here. While in attendance for the reopening ceremony of the Thailand plant, President for Asian Honda, Hiroshi Kobayashi mentioned the Australian government’s cooperation on approving ADR during the process, which usually involves three months but in this case was finalised after one month.

“There was no compromise during this process,” said Honda Australia MD, Satoshi Matsuzawa. “There is a little difference in the ADR [and regulations in Japan] but if they are completely the same as the previous homologation it makes us very efficient.” Honda’s range-wide ENCAP testing also helped “accelerate the process”.

“Because of the location difference, there are some minor specification differences in [grade] availability, so we had to accept that during the Japan sourcing,” Matsuzawa admitted. “Unfortunately in an emergency situation there’s no time for us to make exactly the same specification.”

According to Matsuzawa, his company “did very well” explaining matters related to the Japan-sourced models to new Jazz customers and received positive feedback via its dealership network. Production in Thailand of CR-V and Civic sedan models for Australia starts this month; Accord and City will follow in May.

“As production has resumed we will again source from Thailand and specification would be exactly the same,” he confirmed.

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