Thirty years ago, Honda moved its Ohio transmission production into a new facility in Russells Point and started building 4-speed automatics. Today that same plant is one of the company’s global leaders in drivetrain manufacturing, and the two-motor hybrid system rolling off its lines powers some of the best-selling cars in Honda’s North American lineup. The 26 million transmissions built in between tell a story about how completely the industry has shifted under Honda’s feet, and how deliberately the company positioned itself to keep up.
Honda Transmission Plant-Ohio celebrated its 30th anniversary on July 9, with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on hand to mark the milestone. The numbers are substantial. The plant covers 1.1 million square feet, employs more than 1,200 associates, and carries more than $1 billion in total capital investment. Annual capacity stands at more than 1 million transmissions and gear shifts, plus 500,000 two-motor hybrid systems, plus transfer cases and differentials for Honda and Acura all-wheel drive vehicles.
The product evolution is the more interesting arc. Production in 1996 started with 4-speed automatic transmissions, a format that was already approaching middle age when the plant opened. A 5-speed automatic followed in 2005, a 6-speed in 2010. Both were sensible midcycle steps for a plant running conventional geared automatics. The sharper pivot came with continuously variable transmissions and, more consequentially, the two-motor hybrid system Honda now fits to the CR-V, Accord, and Civic, and makes standard on the Prelude. That system is the one earning awards and moving volume. The Prelude’s inclusion as a standard hybrid application signals where Honda sees the product line heading.
From an engineering standpoint, making a single plant flexible enough to run CVTs, multi-speed automatics, two-motor hybrid systems, and differentials for AWD applications on overlapping timelines is not a straightforward operation. The product line has evolved into several globally exclusive specifications, which is how Honda frames TMP-O’s standing as one of its global drivetrain leaders. For a plant that started with a single transmission type in a Rust Belt town of roughly 5,000 people, that designation carries some weight.
The sustainability record adds another layer. In 2014, the Russells Point facility became the first major auto manufacturing plant in the country to generate a meaningful share of its electricity directly from wind turbines on the property. Five years later, the EPA awarded it an ENERGY STAR Certificate for Outstanding Energy Efficiency, the first U.S. automotive transmission plant to receive that recognition. More recently, associates installed furnace covers to cut heat loss, and in 2025 those covers prevented 164 metric tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
TMP-O fits inside a broader Ohio manufacturing operation that Honda has been building since motorcycle production began in Marysville in 1979. Automobile production at the Marysville Auto Plant started in November 1982. Today Honda is the largest manufacturing employer in Ohio, with around 15,400 associates across five facilities, $14.5 billion in total capital investment, and the capacity to build 460,000 Honda and Acura vehicles and 1.18 million engines annually. The company has put more than $1.3 billion into those Ohio facilities over the past five years alone, including the infrastructure needed for Honda’s Ohio auto plants to run gas-powered, hybrid, and battery-electric vehicles on the same production lines.
That last point is where TMP-O’s 30-year product evolution connects to Honda’s current strategy. The transmissions and hybrid systems built in Russells Point are what make same-line flexibility possible downstream. A plant that started with a single 4-speed automatic is now the supply chain backbone for everything Honda makes in Ohio. The next 30 years start from a much more complicated product menu, and the plant just proved it can handle that kind of change.
Source: Honda. Images courtesy of Honda.
