Honda India – the biggest diesel plant for the company

Honda Car India had introduced its diesel engine with the Amaze and since then there has been no looking back. This engine has helped the Japanese automaker attract back many of its loyalists who are looking to get a diesel engine. In fact, this engine has been designed and tuned for the Indian car market itself. It was later on that they started looking at it for exports as well. It was during this phase that the company got into further expansion and the second plant of the company began assembly and production. The company began its journey at the Greater Noida plant and the second one is the Tapukara in Rajasthan. Both the plants together product 3 lakh car units annually. 

We were invited by Honda to visit their Rajasthan plant and we did learn that this is the company’s largest diesel enigne manufacturing plant. All these diesel engines made here are aluminium. These are light weight and help to enhance performance and even mileage. Honda even manufactures the 1.6-litre diesel engine in India that is exported to other car markets like the UK.

The petrol engines manufactured here are the 1.2-litre, 1.5-litre, 1.6-litre, 1.8-litre and even the 2.0-litre. These are the engines that are manufactured by Honda India and some of them are even exported to other Honda plants.

The plant has majorly four sections for manufacturing. The most important one is the car assembly section. This is where the engine and other mechanicals are put together and are plonked into the car’s body.

Then they are tested for everything starting from the electrical bits, in-door car testing track for all weathers and even quality checks.

It is from here that the car departs to the dealerships. Straight into the outside world, from where it gets delivered to its first owner.

Before the car engine is assembled, its body needed to be built. For this purpose, the body needs to be built, shaped, joined together through spot welding, riveting etc. In todays modern age, most of the cars are spot welded for majority of the bit. This process is cleaner and lasts longer too. At the same time, this is a more useful method as well. So most of the Honda car body panels are spot welded to the body frame. There is some riveting and bolting too, but that is for the parts that can be detached.

Apart from the body assembly, there is another section for assembling the engines. Here is where all the forged parts are bought in together to assemble and complete the engine. A lot goes in assembling one of the most complicated car bits. Here everything needs to be absolutely perfect.

The last mention but an equally important one is the Forging section. Here is where the crankshafts and other forged bits for the engine are manufactured. Without this, the engine cannot be assembled. Everything is built from basic metal and the entire process of converting it into a crank is completed here. At the moment, different metals are purchased for this purpose and Honda doesn’t get any of its crankshafts made from outside. Here everything has to be precisly moulded by the craftsman. This is one of the parts that takes maximum load on itself and this needs to be made careful.