The CR-V is now made at four North American Honda plants, illustrating auto industry shift from sedans to SUVs

There is no better example of the seismic shift in the car market than what is going on at Honda's plant in Marysville.

The automaker's best-selling model, the CR-V sport utility vehicle, has been added to the plant's production line, displacing some production of the slower-selling Accord, which has been made in Marysville since 1982.

The CR-V isn't the first SUV to roll off the Marysville line — Acura's RDX was once made there — but the sheer volume of CR-Vs needed to meet demand is staggering. Demand is so great that the CR-V is now made at four North American plants: Marysville; East Liberty; Greensburg, Indiana; and Alliston, Ontario.

"We've recognized that having an SUV is probably something the Marysville auto plant needs to add to our portfolio," Marysville Auto Plant Manager Rob May said.

"We've always been a sedan plant, but given the industry and the conditions around gas prices and the popularity with SUVs, we thought we should add something to our lineup to make sure that we are positioned to be successful in the future. ...

"This place was built on the Accord. ... It will always be a big part of our history."

The CR-V sales records speak for themselves. The mid-sized SUV was Honda’s top-selling vehicle in 2017 with 377,895 units sold, 6 percent more than in 2016. This year, through November, 336,934 CR-Vs have been sold, about 1 percent below the same time last year.

Honda announced the CR-Vs would be assembled at the Marysville plant in January at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Production began in September.

The population of the vehicle reflects an overall move from sedans to SUVs, crossovers and trucks, with huge sales of vehicles including the Nissan Rogue, Ford Explorer and Chevrolet Traverse.

Ford announced in April it is phasing out all cars in North America with the exception of the Mustang and a crossover vehicle. General Motors announced in November it will stop producing six sedans by the end of 2019, affecting several U.S. assembly plants, including the Lordstown plant in Trumbull County, which is scheduled to be closed once Chevy Cruze production ends in March.

Fortunately for Honda, its plants stress flexibility. The CR-V is also made at the East Liberty plant, just down the road from Marysville, where the Acura MDX SUV and new Acura RDX are also made, even though the plant was built to produce Civics, another model the CR-V leapt past on the sales chart.

The East Liberty plant sent associates to Marysville to train workers on how to build the CR-V, said Keith Strickland, department manager of production services at the East Liberty plant.

"We understand clearly the importance of launching the CR-V over in Marysville, so we did everything we could to make sure that was a successful launch for them as well," Strickland said.

The result was a quicker launch for the CR-V at Marysville, said Don Williams, the project leader in adding the CR-V to the Marysville plant.

"We had the opportunity with (East Liberty) being just up the road to take some of our associates ... and send them over there so they can actually do it on line at line speed. ... That really helped accelerate our training," Williams said.

Substantial market moves, like the ongoing loss of sedan sales to SUVs, can be unsettling for workers at the plant that has made the models losing favor. With the addition of the CR-V to their line, the Marysville plant, which also makes the Acura TLX and Acura ILX sedans, didn’t change the volume of vehicles produced. The plant produces 440,000 cars a year and has about 4,400 employees.

"It creates a little bit of anxiety for some of our associates," May said. "We really try to use these situations to energize us to make sure that we put our best foot forward each and every day because we want to be in the driver's seat."

mhenry@dispatch.com

@megankhenry