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Honda Japan CEO to be conferred Datukship

October 11, 2008 at 10:53 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, Local News

Takeo FukuiIt’s Datuk Takeo Fukui from today onwards, as the CEO of Honda Motor Co Ltd Japan will receive the Darjah Mulia Seri Melaka (DMSM) which carries the title Datuk today at the 70th birthday of Malacca’s Yang di-Pertua Negri Tun Mohd Khalil Yaakob.

He joined Honda in 1969 and has been working his way up the ladder ever since, up to the CEO position he is currently holding since 2003. He started off as an engineer and worked on the CVCC project, and later became chief engineer of the Honda R&D Company and later president.

The Datukship is probably because of Honda’s contribution to the economy of Malacca via it’s assembly plant in Pegoh Alor Gajah, which also exports parts such as CV joints and bumpers.

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Honda Insight Hybrid Concept at Paris 2008

October 9, 2008 at 5:18 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Concept Cars, Honda, Videos

Honda Insight

The Honda Insight is a “dedicated hybrid vehicle” in Honda terms, which means it is a model that only comes with a hybrid powertrain, unlike the Honda Civic Hybrid which also has non-hybrid variants.

The 5-door, 5-seater car has its battery and control unit located under the cargo space. This is the latest version of Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist system. A production version will be announced later and will go on sale in spring 2009 in Japan, Europe and North America. Annual sales are projected to reach 200,000 units.

We have to note that none of the promises that Honda made when they first talked about this new Insight sometime ago have been fulfilled with this concept. The Insight will apparently be cheap enough for a majority of people to consider, instead of current hybrids which are typically much more expensive than the regular versions.

The Civic Hybrid currently costs RM162,800 here in Malaysia, much more than the Civic 2.0 at RM128,800, and that is a big price difference. We will have to wait for the production Insight to be unveiled to do a price comparison and see if the Insight will really be an affordable hybrid.

BTW Honda, what happened to AVTEC? Toyota’s Valvematic has already been put into production cars in both Europe and Japan.

For now, check out hi-res photos and a few videos after the jump.
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Honda studying possibility of smaller i-DTEC

October 3, 2008 at 1:57 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, India, International News

Honda’s Indian distributor Honda Siel Cars India Ltd CEO Masahiro Takedagawa says that Honda is seriously studying the possibility of developing a small diesel engine for compact cars such as the Honda City, especially for countries such as India where diesel cars are extremely popular thanks to the 30% price difference between petrol and diesel fuel.

Honda currently has a 2.2 litre second generation diesel engine called the i-DTEC. The first generation was called the i-CTDi and some of you may remember the cute ad campaign that debuted with the engine.

India will also become a key manufacturing base for Honda’s global supply chain as certain key engine components will begin to be supplied from there. The Indian engine component plant will mainly supply the ASEAN market, so in the future our 1.5 litre i-VTEC engines in the upcoming new Honda City may come from India.

The FTA which allows special duty benefits for 8 to 10 engine components traded between the two countries allows India to enter the ASEAN engine component market. This list may be widened in the future.

And who knows, we could see a 1.4 litre Honda City i-DTEC some time in the future too! Though it may have little hope of making it onto our shores as our diesel prices are now very close to petrol prices despite having very low quality, after enjoying many years of being alot cheaper than petrol.

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Honda’s Drive Every Drop Online Travel Show

September 29, 2008 at 4:00 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, Videos

Drive Every Drop

Honda has an interesting website up – Drive Every Drop. It’s essentially an online travel show which showcases places to go to in the Asia-Oceania region such as India, Malaysia and Australia, but with an interesting twist to it.

Everytime a visitor visits the site and browses the contents, they get points in the form of “drops of fuel”. There are various routes that the Drive Every Drop team can take across each country. These drops can then be donated to these specific routes – sort of like voting for which route you’d like the team to follow. The Malaysian route for example starts in KL and you can either go north or south. The route has descriptions of what they will visit along the way so if one route seems more interesting to you than another, you can donate more drops to it.

Of course, the host Allan Yu (of Amazing Race Asia fame) goes on his journeys using Honda cars. The show is really quite eye-opening as we’ve always heard about how crazy the traffic is in countries like India, with horns being sounded every few seconds. Now you can actually watch whether its true or what it’s like as India is the first country that Drive Every Drop showcased.

Go to Drive Every Drop to watch the videos or look after the jump for an episode of Drive Every Drop showing the traffic conditions in India.
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Honda Civic Hybrid: base for a rally car?

September 27, 2008 at 10:28 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, Hybrids and Alternative Fuel, International News, Lotus

Lotus Oaktec Honda Civic Hybrid

Energy-efficient vehicle design specialists Oaktec have been working on Honda’s IMA hybrid system for motorsports usage since 2004 and has recently signed on Lotus Engineering to be a part of a project funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency to develop a stage rally and circuit race version of the Honda Civic Hybrid.

No specs have been released on what upgrades have been made to the Civic Hybrid to make it motorsports-worthy, but Lotus says the Civic Hybrid’s CVT transmission allows the car to be driven in full power constantly, making performance very accessible.

The motorsports Civic Hybrid developed by Oaktec and Lotus will be raced for the first time at the Dunlop Max Sport Cup at the Rockingham circuit on the 28th of September 2008 so perhaps we will learn more about the car after the race. What we know now is that the electric motor has been revised for more power and there is now an upgraded control system to allow for more aggressive brake energy regeneration.

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Guangzhou Honda to develop Honda City-based C-segment sedan

September 22, 2008 at 4:21 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, China, Honda, International News

Honda City-Civic

Honda in China is sold by two companies – Dongfeng Honda and Guangzhou Honda. In the C-segment market, the Honda Civic is sold by Dongfeng Honda, leaving Guangzhou Honda with no car to pitch against Dongfeng’s Civic and other C-segment competitors such as FAW Toyota’s Corolla.

The C-Segment market must be quite important as it warrants Guangzhou Honda taking this problem into its own hands, with the support from Honda Japan of course. Guangzhou Honda will be putting a 1.8 litre motor in the new Honda City and will be stretching it to more Civic-like proportions to pitch it against Honda’s own Honda Civic.

As with all other 1.8 litre latest generation Hondas, the 1.8 litre motor is likely to be from the new R-series SOHC i-VTEC family of engines. As it is based on the City, the new car will probably carry over its rear torsion beam design and other technical features such as the positioning of the fuel tank underneath the passenger cabin.

Chinese publications are currently calling it the CC (City+Civic), and according to a Guangzhou Honda engineer, it will not be called the City and will get a new name. The new car will be priced at roughly the same level as the Civic, currently sold in China for about 150,000 yuan (about RM75,150). It may even be marketed under Guangzhou Honda’s separate “Li Nian” marque.

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2009 Honda City set to hit the European market

September 22, 2008 at 1:40 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under 2009 Honda City, Cars, Honda, International News

2009 Honda City
Click for hi-res photo

A new set of photos of the new 2009 Honda City have been released, this time a left hand drive version as a preview to the car’s official European unveiling at the Istanbul Motor Show this October 2008.

The European market Honda City will be fitted with a 100 PS 1.4 litre i-VTEC engine mated to a 5-speed transmission, and apparently the new City – like its European Jazz and Civic hatch siblings – will feature a 6-speed i-SHIFT automated manual transmission with steering-mounted paddle shifts will serve those who do not want to bother with a manual clutch on a daily basis.

The 5-speed manual transmission has been improved over the previous version, now featuring a carbon synchromesh for smoother gear changes as well a new set of gear ratios optimised for the new engine.

Other than the left hand drive interior, something new shown with this new set of photos is the fact that the car features an automatic climate control system with digital display instead of the three-knob manual air conditioning controls that were shown in the previous set of photos. The exterior also looks a little different, with some extra side strips somehow giving the car a more stout look. Frankly I prefer the Asian version’s exterior.

Look after the jump for the new set of photos.
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New 4th generation Honda Odyssey teaser online!

September 22, 2008 at 10:13 am By Paul Tan Filed Under Cars, Honda, International News, Spyshots

New Honda Odyssey
Click to enlarge

Honda has released a teaser image of the upcoming fourth generation Honda Odyssey, a 7-seater low-rider MPV based on the Honda Accord platform.

The teaser image only shows the side profile but it reveals the new Odyssey keeps faithful to the third generation’s low-rider look, which despite being lower than your conventional tall MPV, still offers a large interior room thanks to the low floor.

The rear end gets slim and shapely lights while the front you can see hints of the new large grille with silver borders (reminds me of the Mk5 Golf R32 somewhat) that extends all the way to the lower bumper air intake, very much like the Honda FCX Clarity.

The third gen Odyssey only came with an inline-4 2.4 litre engine, so if the new Odyssey carries over this single engine line-up you can expect it to get the same power boost up to 180 PS as the new Honda Accord. Could the VCM 3.5 litre V6 be added this time?

What we do know is that the new Odyssey will get a new multi-view camera system which displays views from a total of 4 wide-angle CCD cameras on a navigation screen to reduce blindspots and help with parallel or garage parking. The CCD cameras are installed on the front and rear of the vehicle as well as on the wing mirrors.

Images from the 4 cameras are synthesized and additional information is added such as a projection line which shows the vehicle’s projected trajectory path calculated based on steering angle information. You can use this trajectory path to help align the car to reverse into a parking lot and position the Odyssey with higher accuracy. Also added is a refernce line which provides a reference for distance between the vehicle and other objects.

Look after the jump for more views from the new camera system.
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Toyota iQ platform to be used for new hatchback, SUV and 7-seater MPV

September 20, 2008 at 3:24 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under BMW, Cars, Honda, International News, Toyota

Toyota iQ

In order to pack enough components and space into such a small little thing, Toyota’s new premium small car the Toyota iQ warranted an all-new platform with many newly designed components.

Some packaging innovations used in the new Toyota iQ includes a relocated differential moved to the front side of the engine to allow the front wheels to be moved further forward, a new steering rack that is mounted high on the firewall, a new wiper motor and mechanism to allow for the new steering rack, a book-thin flat fuel tank located under the rear passenger’s feet, a compact yet powerful climate control unit, ultrathin seatbacks to create more space, and repositioned engine ancillaries around the suspension for a turning radius of 3.9 meters. Because the rear passenger is so close to the rear of the car, there are even rear windshield airbags.

The iQ will have a production volume of only 100,000 units a year which is not enough to recover the R&D costs, so a few more cars based on the Toyota iQ platform is expected to arrive soon. One is a small SUV – likely to be a Cross-iQ, and others would include a compact 7-seater as well as a car to replace the Toyota Yaris.

It seems that the Toyota iQ is actually a challenge to Toyota’s R&D team to rethink how they usually design a vehicle platform, and then use the space-maximizing innovations and platform to create more normal sized cars that offer class-leading interior space. Imagine, perhaps two generations from now we will get an iQ-based Toyota Vios B-segment sedan that offers C-segment interior space.

And it will all be because of the Toyota iQ.

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Honda City Modulo with bodykit and grille

September 17, 2008 at 11:03 pm By Paul Tan Filed Under 2009 Honda City, Cars, Honda

Honda City Modulo

Displayed together at the official unveiling of the new Honda City in Thailand was a version of the City with a Modulo bodykit. The Modulo kit features a new front bumper and grille together with side skirts and new alloy wheels. While it loses its Optimus Prime look, the Modulo front grille still has a very techno design theme to it and features alot more chrome. Look after the jump for one more photo of the new Honda City Modulo.

Related Posts:
2009 Honda City officially unveiled in Thailand
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