# Should Hondas made in the US be considered American cars? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 7, 2003, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206 "2003-06-07T00:01:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![syncrolecyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206/21 "2014-01-05T15:45:46Z")
If an American buys Honda stock, and collects some profits, then - as far as that shareholder is concerned - its American owned. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206/22 "2014-01-05T16:52:52Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > What nationality is an iPad? Well, as the endless, self-serving and very expensive series of ads of recent months keeps reminding us, Apple products are DESIGNED IN CALIFORNIA. [SIZE=2]So I guess having all their parts made in the Asian arc and assembled in China is just a detail. [/SIZE] ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206/23 "2014-01-05T19:09:04Z")
… and he’s British 🙂 > **[Jony Ive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive)** > > Sir Jonathan Paul Ive KBE HonFREng RDI (born 27 February 1967) is a British industrial and product designer, as well as businessman. Ive was the chief design officer (CDO) of Apple Inc. from 1997 until 2019 (known as senior vice president of industrial design until 2015), and serves as Chancellor of the Royal College of Art. > Ive joined Apple in September 1992, and was promoted to senior vice president of industrial design in the late 1990s after the return of co-founder Steve Jobs to the comp... ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206/24 "2014-01-05T19:40:28Z")
> [@Batfish](#): > > A couple of decades ago when I was attending a technical college Toyota made a donation to the school. They sponsored a program in Automotive to specifically train technicians to work on Toyotas. They had a big dog and pony opening which included putting a Toyota car on top of an abandoned water tower or some such on campus. > > Predictably some rednecks grumbled. > > Toyota was building cars in America and selling them to Americans. Toyota was training Americans who needed jobs to work on cars in America. It was good for the school, good for the students and good for Toyota. > > Did the school turn down similar offers from Ford or GM or Chrysler? No. I find it especially interesting that Toyota (with its executive offices in Japan) can run a plant in America and produce small cars at a profit, but the Big 3 American manufacturers have said for years that they can’t. Makes me think the wrong jobs are being offshored. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206/25 "2014-01-05T19:59:47Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I find it especially interesting that Toyota (with its executive offices in Japan) can run a plant in America and produce small cars at a profit, but the Big 3 American manufacturers have said for years that they can’t. Makes me think the wrong jobs are being offshored. The two aren’t comparable. Toyota’s factories are located in lower-tax, lower-cost areas. More importantly, Toyota’s employees are nonunion, and make much less. Most importantly, Toyota doesn’t have tens of thousands of union workers already retired, drawing on the very generous pension plans the UAW was able to get for them decades ago. IIRC, the total difference in compensation comes to something like $30 an hour. Unless they can start forcing 70-year-olds to give back their pensions, the Big 3 are at a huge disadvantage. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206/26 "2014-01-05T21:03:39Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Unless they can start forcing 70-year-olds to give back their pensions, the Big 3 are at a huge disadvantage. And that, kiddies, is why you don’t trade fat pensions and retirement benefits for short-term compensation limits. …but hey, by the time it’s a problem, you’ll be long gone or dead, so go right ahead and get your rep as a tough, tight-fisted boss by controlling those current FY costs. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206/27 "2014-01-05T22:08:32Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I find it especially interesting that Toyota (with its executive offices in Japan) can run a plant in America and produce small cars at a profit, but the Big 3 American manufacturers have said for years that they can’t. Makes me think the wrong jobs are being offshored. Before Toyota opened its US operations, in 1985 it participated in a joint venture with GM. Toyota took the shittiest worst-performing plant that GM had (Fremont, CA) and turned it into a successful small car facility, using mostly the same failing workers who worked under GM. There was a [This American Life](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/nummi) episode that explains what Toyota did differently and explores the reasons why GM was unable to learn from the joint venture. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206/28 "2014-01-05T22:16:05Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Before Toyota opened its US operations, in 1985 it participated in a joint venture with GM. Toyota took the shittiest worst-performing plant that GM had (Fremont, CA) and turned it into a successful small car facility, using mostly the same failing workers who worked under GM. > > There was a [This American Life](http://\
[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/nummi<br](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/nummi<br) /\>) episode that explains what Toyota did differently and explores the reasons why GM was unable to learn from the joint venture. Or from Deming, in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206/29 "2014-01-05T23:06:18Z")
> [@jtswimmer](#): > > The american made Honda Accord is made in Ohio with minimal foreign parts. While the Ford Fusion Is made in Mexico. So that’s when you ask yourself what sounds better, and to me i would rather buy the Accord to give a US employee my money. You seem to be assuming that most of the employee work is in assembly, whether of the car of the parts. But what if there is more employee work involved in design, not just of the car, but also of the parts, and the assembly line process, and the machine tools, and the robots? I’m not saying for sure that design takes more employees than assembly, as, googling, I can’t find the information. So I’m just guessing. But my guess is that more employee time, for that Mexico-assembled Ford, occurs in the US and Canada than in Mexico. And I’m guessing that more employee time, for that US-assembled Honda, occurs in Japan than the US. I should however acknowledge that [Honda has a US design facility.](http://www.honda.com/newsandviews/article.aspx?id=7006-en) So some of the design work for Hondas made in Japan is done by US employees. But I’m also guessing that the great majority of Honda design employees work in Japan. This isn’t to be rah rah Ford. I think that Japanese workers deserve jobs, if they do them well, just as much as people in any other country. The never-ending increase in automation means that if most product creation employee time isn’t yet in design, soon it will be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hondas-made-in-the-us-be-considered-american-cars/180206.md?page=1)