Paul Tan on the Automotive Industry
Honda has developed a variant of the Honda Wave 110i equipped with a CV-Matic automatic transmission called the Wave 110i AT. Instead of the regular step-through transmission, you get a belt-based CVT so you don’t have to shift through the gears yourself. The normal Wave 110i with PGM-FI costs upwards of 34,000 Thai Baht, but for the Wave 110i AT with the CV-Matic you have to top up and pay a starting upwards of 44,900 Thai Baht.
Honda’s Indian operations have just launched the new Honda CB Twister in India, a 110cc 4-stroke air-cooled motorcycle which will be sold at about 42,000 Rupee, which translates to about RM3,063. 110cc motorcycles account for about half of total motorcycle sales in India, and India is expectedly the world’s second largest motorcycle market behind China. Honda sells nearly a million motorcycles each year in India alone, and the new CB Twister is expected to account for 220,000 units a year.
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Six-cylinder engines are pretty rare in the world of bikes, obviously due to packaging issues. If installed inline, it would either be too wide or too long to fit a bike frame properly. So we see V6 and boxer formats for 6 cylinders in bikes more often than an inline installation. Honda has made both boxer-6 and inline-6 bike engines before, installed in the Goldwing and the CBX respectively.
Though the very popular 320i here has a four-pot, BMW cars are very much well-known for their silky smooth inline-6 engines. BMW is now trying to bring inline-6 into bikes in a big way, as according to them it is the packaging issues that have prevented the cylinder format from really going anywhere when installed in a bike, whether in a production model or in motorcycle racing.
BMW claims that the BMW Motorrad Concept 6′s inline-6 engine is approximately 10cm slimmer than any production inline-6 engine coming before it, and it is only a bit wider than a large-capacity inline-4 engine with conventional technology. BMW has used a slightly over-square bore to stroke ratio measurement with a relatively long stroke and small gaps between cylinders. Electrical ancillaries and drive components are situated behind the crank in the open space above the transmission in order to minimize width.
The engine’s construction uses lightweight materials in as many areas as possible in order to keep the engine relatively light. Some weight-reduction techniques include hollow-drilled camshafts and light conrods. The engine’s inline-6 configuration does not require the use of a balance shaft. The block uses dry sump lubrication, helping lower the engine installation position. Like inline-4 installed in the BMW K 1300 series, the engine is tilted forward by 55 degrees for a lower center of gravity and better weight balance. The tilt angle also allows extra space for the aerodynamically-positioned intake manifold.
And now for some numbers. The inline-6 has 1.6 litres of displacement and can produce 130Nm of torque from just 2,000rpm. It revs up to nearly 9,000rpm. Look after the jump for photos of the Concept 6.
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MV Agusta F4 Tamburini
It looks like MV Agusta is on the market again. The company has been exchanging hands for quite abit recently. It was first ‘resurrected’ by Cagiva after it purchased the rights to the name in 1991. The first ‘modern’ MV Agusta rolled off the factory in 1997. In 1999, the group was restructured and MV Agusta became the main brand replacing Cagiva.
It got into heavy debt and was purchased by Proton end-2004. Then came the famous 1 Euro sale to GEVI SpA. The company then sold its Husqvarna brand to BMW, leaving the group with only MV Agusta and Cagiva brands. In 2008, Harley Davidson bought the group for 70 million Euros.
And here we are today, with bike sales sluggish in the US (Harley Davidson worldwide net income declined 84.1% in Q3 this year compared to the last quarter), Harley Davidson has decided to leave the sports bike market to focus on the typical Harley kind of heavy and noise hog, in a ‘back to basics’ kind of move. Harley also announced that its Buell brandname will be discontinued. The company says the kind of profit it gets from a sale of an MV Agusta or a Buell is far less than that of a relatively low-tech Harley Davidson.
So who will be next in line to own MV Agusta?
Naza will be holding its Naza Cars and Bikes Carnival this weekend from the 23rd to 25th of October 2009 10am to 7pm at the Naza Automall by the Federal Highway in PJ. The event is open to public and there will be some good deals on Naza Automall cars during the carnival, other than the usual carnival fare of food and drinks.
Part of the deals include 100% financing for Naza Bikes, special financing package for Ducati and Japanese CBU bikes, and a 90% financing package for Harley-Davidson bikes at attractive interest rates, with immediate approval for financing.
The carnival is held in conjunction with the Malaysian MotoGP 2009 and Harley Davidson of Kuala Lumpur’s first anniversary celebrations. In conjunction with the MotoGP, a convoy of between 500 and 600 bikes of Ducati, Harley-Davidson and Naza bikes will be riding from the Naza Automall SIC on Sunday for the race. The convoy is open to all motorcycles, not just the mentioned brands. The convoy is expected to leave at 9.30am.
Other than the good deals on cars and bikes, there will be a number of interesting exhibits there that you might be interested in – the new Ducati Streetfighter, the new Porsche Panamera, and the new C207 Mercedes-Benz E-Class Coupe.
The E-Class Coupe replaces the CLK in the Mercedes-Benz range so if you want to get a glimpse of the new coupe even before Mercedes-Benz Malaysia officially launches even the sedan body – this is your chance. Basically since Naza deals with all kinds of cars and brands, you can even consider this a “PJ Motorshow”. A charity activity has also been lined-up, with part of the proceeds going to several charities and children’s homes.
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The Husqvarna brand will enter a new phase of life under the BMW group as the German automaker’s fourth brand. There’s even a new Husqvarna section in BMW’s Pressclub site alongside the BMW, MINI and Motorrad brands now. We’ll probably see much more from them from now on – the first step is to develop new appealing products, right?
It recently opened a new R&D and administrative building, which will provide product development with the best possible support and permit optimum integration of all the functional units involved in the manufacturing processes for the entire range of Husqvarna products.
The new building has three floors and has been built as an addition to the company’s head office at Via Nino Bixio 8. The ground floor houses the engine R&D department and roller dyno facilities, along with the prototype workshop, the racing division and a technical training centre.
The first floor is where the R&D department is located, although the purchasing and market research departments are also on this floor. This is intentional – the people from all three departments have to meet often to meet a balance between functionality, quality and cost, both within the company and with suppliers.
The building is also ‘green’ in the sense htat energy for the hot water supply is provided by the solar panels fitted to the building’s roof. This is all part of BMW’s EfficientDynamics plan. There is also a public area in the front of the new building which has a Husqvarna showroom.
Honda will be introducing a new scooter model for the ASEAN and global market soon, beginning with Thailand where it will be produced. The new Honda PCX is powered by a 4-stroke water-cooled 125cc single cylinder engine that can do 50km per litre on the ECE 40 MODE cycle. It’s not going to be cheap, as the PCX will be positioned as a high-end but high-value model. The Honda PCX features an “idling stop system” where the engine can shut off automatically when the scooter comes to a complete stop. This can help save fuel consumption while you wait for a traffic light or for whatever reason you’re stopped – traffic jams don’t seem to pose that much of a problem for these bikes.
The good news – Honda now has a dual-clutch transmission. The bad news (for most of us anyway) is that it’s a transmission for large sport bikes, so you’re not going to see a twin clutch in a Civic for now.
Honda claims this is the first fully automatic motorcycle dual clutch transmission for large-displacement sport bikes in the world. The transmission will make its production debut in a Honda VFR in Europe and North America in 2010, with Japanese sales to start later.
Like most twin clutch transmission, even gears are on one clutch and the odd gears are on the other. This twin clutch has a total of 6 forward gears, and you can either leave the gearbox in full auto mode (two available – regular D and S for sporty) or change to a 6-speed manual mode.
Honda VFRs are currently in use by our Royal Malaysian Police for some of its big bikes. Perhaps they can upgrade to these sometime in the future so the cops can focus on maneuvering their bikes in a chase and take their minds off clutching and shifting.
Look after the jump for more images of the twin clutch.
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They really should make more amusing ads like this. Check out this Volkswagen Touran TV commercial after the jump. They’re promoting the car’s Park Assist system, which by the way is available locally on the Volkswagen Tiguan. The dude in the video can’t dance though but he kinda looks like Schumacher. The Touran is a Golf-based MPV that isn’t available in Malaysia, though there were a number of pre-owned ones (CrossTouran) sold off by Volkswagen Malaysia recently. Volkswagen recently announced that they will start assembly of the Touran in Indonesia.
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If you are a Maxis Hotlink and a CIMB Bank customer, you could be riding off in style with a brand new Ducati 1098 superbike worth RM138k. In addition to that there are also daily cash prizes of RM100 for the highest top up amount in a day.
The CIMB Clicks Maxis Ducati campaign will run from 25 June 2009 to 24 September 2009. Basically all you need to do is reload your Hotlink prepaid phone credit either on the CIMB Clicks internet banking portal, or any of CIMB Bank’s 1,800 ATMs nationwide. The minimum reload amount of RM30.
VIDEO: Ducati 1098 Promo Clip
The 1098 (pronounced by most people as ten-nine-eight), unlike its namesake actually has a 1,099c engine, in classic Ducati L-twin cylinder configuration. If you’ve ever encountered a Ducati next to you at a traffic light you’ll know that the sound of a Duke L-twin especially paired with a nice performance exhaust is extremely addictive. Because of the cylinder configuration there is a very unique power pulse pattern. Twins also generally make more torque lower down compared to inline-4 bikes.
Although there is a 1198 now (just launched by Ducati Malaysia), a 1098 is still alot to handle, with 160 horsepower produced at 9,750rpm, matched with a 6-speed transmission. That’s really alot of power for something with a dry weight of only 173kg.
It uses a tubular steel Trellis frame, Showa 43mm adjustable upside-down forks at the front, and an adjustable Showa monoshock with aluminium single-sided swingarm at the rear.
The Ducati 1098 was honoured as the Best Bike of the Year 2008 from the Supertest World Association, the International Bike of the Year for both 2007 and 2008, Bike of the Year 2007 by Moto, Australian Motorcycle News and Motorrad, as well as the Best Design and Best Sportbike awards by the Motorcycle Design Association.
