Honda Motor Co.’s CEO Takahiro Hachigo bows for photographers during a press conference at the automaker’s headquarters in Tokyo, Monday. Some Takata air bag inflators have exploded with too much force, spraying shrapnel inside vehicles, regulators have found. This is expected to play a major role in empowering and motivating them, which would in turn “bring out the best” in them.
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Furthermore, Mr. Hachigo will return Honda to its historic focus on the production of tech-rich, mechanically reliable – quality, the stuff that the Honda name and reputation was built on. Problems with these models resulted in the company slashing the pay of its executives.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Honda has struggled to develop newer models as ex- CEO Takanobu Ito prioritized rapidly increasing sales, having set a target of six million units sold by 2017 after taking over in 2009.
It’s all well and good talking about global production and exports, but it would be for nought without the new product to support it. To that end, Hachigo said that in addition to the upcoming tenth-gen Civic, Honda is also working on the next CR-V and Accord, which he promises will be “more attractive vehicles that feature more new technologies, higher competitiveness and innovative designs”.
The CEO also clarified that the company has no plans to provide any financial assistance to Takata Corp., the air bag supplier who contributed to huge losses for the company after Honda was forced to recall over two million cars with defective air bags. The automaker recently restated last year’s earnings to account for additional costs. Just last month Honda had to modify its operating profit for the year ended March to 606.88 billion yen ($4.92 billion) from the previous figure of 651.68 billion yen it announced back in April, as it had to address expanded recall costs.
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“We have money budgeted for quality-related costs, as we did previous year, and we think we can respond within this allocated amount”, Hachigo told journalists.
