Tripling its reduction for this fiscal year as plunging sales push US-based competitors to the brink of collapse, Honda Motor Co. announced it cutting 119,000 vehicles throughout its North American facilities at Honda plants in Ohio, Indiana, Alabama and Canada. 

Honda Manufacturing of Alabama will reduce production by 18,000 units, Honda of America Manufacturing by 58,000 units, Honda of Canada Manufacturing by 37,000 units and Honda Manufacturing of Indiana by 6,000 units. 

Spokesman Ed Miller said production will be trimmed through slower line speed and eliminating some scheduled assembly days. Plants will extend a scheduled holiday shutdown this month by two days; and in January between four and seven days of output will be cut at the afore-mentioned factories. 

Miller said in an e-mail that though no layoffs are planned, Honda expects to build 1.29 million cars and light trucks in the US, Canada and Mexico, in its year ending March 31, less than the initial goal of 1.47 million. The latest reductions bring the total to 175,000 vehicles from the Tokyo-based company’s earlier cuts of 56,000.  

US sales for Honda, which last had an annual drop in its biggest market 15 years ago, fell 5.4 percent through November from a year earlier. Honda, Japan’s second-largest carmaker, last month posted its steepest decline since 1981, that of 32 percent. 

Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group Inc. in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said: “Everyone is hurting. Sales are down across the industry 30 percent to 35 percent since September. That pain is being shared equally by all companies.”