In an interview with WardsAuto recently, Honda R&D chief Keiji Ohtsu shed some light on the automaker’s future direction for its powertrains. Since its “turbocharged” plan was announced at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show, Honda has put five new engines and three CVT transmissions in the market, and it is far from done.
This year, Honda will launch two more engines, and Ohtsu revealed a few more plans leading up to year 2020. “We are focusing on weight reduction (in the future), changing V6 to inline-four engines, and inline fours to three cylinders,” Ohtsu told the publication.
Given the three new turbocharged engines it revealed in 2013, the R&D chief confirmed that the goal was to meet “regional needs in North America, Europe and China.” However, he did say that the 1.0 litre turbo four, which hasn’t found its way into a production model yet (due for Euro-spec Civic in 2017), is still under development. The 1.5 litre turbo can be found powering the 10th-gen Civic and Jade RS, for example, while the 2.0 turbo powers the Civic Type R.
He mentioned later that these markets were continually adopting more stringent emissions regulations, resulting in car makers switching their focus to engine downsizing. “China offers the added incentive of a tax break for smaller-displacement engines, further encouraging downsizing,” he explained.
But while the Chinese market is set to gain Honda’s turbocharged power, it looks like the rest of South East Asia (SEA) may not be so lucky. “Depending on the market and region, but particularly in Asia and other emerging markets, we will continue offering our naturally-aspirated lineup, which tends to be less costly. In South East Asia, we will supply our current lineup of naturally-aspirated engines,” Ohtsu stated.
With Honda moving towards turbocharging in many markets, it was anticipated that the Japanese manufacturer will be looking to gradually replace its 2.4 litre naturally-aspirated four-pot with its new 1.5 litre turbocharged mill. It seems likely that our market will continue to feature N/A engines for the foreseeable future.
Ohtsu did mention that he was also expecting Honda’s hybrid-powered vehicles to storm the global market, but claimed that in its attempt to achieve ultimate fuel efficiency levels, a turbocharged hybrid isn’t likely to take shape any time soon. “We expect the ratio of hybrids to grow, although for the time being Honda won’t use turbocharged engines in our hybrids,” he explained.
With turbo-hybrid powertrains out of the way, looking ahead, the Honda R&D chief said that it plans to continue developing pure turbocharged engines for greater performance and efficiency. “We’re just approaching the midway point in our plan. We eventually want to achieve a heat efficiency of 50% through lean turbocharging. We will focus on HLSI, or homogeneous lean-charge spark-ignition technology,” he said.
“Of the two leading combustion technology candidates – the other being HCCI, or homogeneous-charge-compression ignition – we have opted for spark ignition because we feel that HCCI is limited in terms of rpm, torque and operational band or range. HLSI is better suited to Honda’s engine concept. We’ve researched both, of course.”
To further elaborate, HCCI engines require no spark plug type of igniter to create a ignite the fuel mixture. A reaction is created purely by raising the density and temperature in the combustion chamber via sheer compression until the fuel mixture ignites spontaneously.
“If we achieve 50% heat efficiency, it would put our conventional engines on an equal footing with our hybrids. Using the JC08 test mode, the Honda Fit, for instance, would improve to 2.7 litres per 100 km from 3.9 litres per 100 km at present. This is an estimate, of course.”
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Again…. Malaysia is given peanut engine…..
Not only Malaysia lah – SEA. If you don’t need the complexity, why go for it? More expensive to maintain too
Which means those can afford continental and RON97, still be buying Audi/ BMW/ Merz/ Mini/ Volkswagen/ Ford/ Peugeot. Hehehe
Turbo car doesn’t mean must use RON 97. Preve Turbo does not need RON 97 at least.
mgkn turbo cekai kot
Hahahaha preve torquey turbo engine still smokes civic n/a.
Bukan turbo cekai. Compression rendah & ECU yg digunakan ada julat ignition retard yg mencukupi utk mencegah knocking. So, RON95 tiada masalah digunakan dgn engine CFE
Due to our peanut government do care on the car emission control to protect the local car industry.
Uncle believes turbo is only for vroom vroom not related to drivebility
Current local car actually already achieve Euro 5 standard and ready for euro 6
Oh. That means god-country-jangan-persoal SG oso peanut Gov cuz the last I heard they oso is part of S-E-A.
CVT is the real problem and fun killer
Clearly you dun know what is CVT is all about.
Si pei sien after reading this news… :(
Do manufacturer think that we are so dump not to pay a little bit more for a turbo than normal NA engine (if given a choice), for obviously more efficient & saves money in long run?
I think you and I would both pay more for turbocharged engines but the majority of uncles who buy Hondas in Malaysia probably wouldn’t.
By the way you spell dumb as dump, yes you are dump….
You have legislation to blame for that. The governments over her are not pushing for stricter emissions standards so they should not bother
With that being said,, I always have a beef with car companies that do not provide a ‘world car’ or ‘world technology’ to us..
I despise region engineering (avanza, Brio etc) as they are less safer and built down to a cost and a half the cars next to their western and japanese counterparts…
The big 3 jap carmakers do this the most blatantly which is why I always avoid buying from them…. if the smaller guys such as Mazda can do it..I shouldn’t see a reason why they can’t…
the SEA car market is one of the biggest in the world..it’s time it’s buyers got more intelligent..say no to low spec..old tech and unsafe cars…
How to push? Remember hicom lorry? Easily the most polluted engine, yet still passing inspection without bribing. Why? They really can’t fail something they just pass within months.
Is Proton engine doing better? I don’t know, but it’s a big IF.
Say no to vios
But atleast give us more powerful NA Engine like the US, 2.4l engine here only produces 226NM torque, while the US 2.4l gets 240NM+ torque. Current 2.0 is also underpower compare to competitors.
Good news for crony, bad news for consumers. I think some minister will probably pop up and say Malaysians prefer slower car because it’s cheaper. LoL
So means SG oso crony gov and LHL will say SG pipu prefer slower car becoz its cheaper,lol.
Read back ur Geography book dude.
LoL
I know my English isn’t really that good but I didn’t expect someone could be doing worse than me.
I said good news for crony because low cost but they sell expensive. I didn’t say thanks to crony that we are stuck with old engine. Did I say crony forced the NA engine on us?
Lolz. I dun dispute ur england, but ur geography is even worse, cuz South East Asia does just mean Malaysia, dude
LOL… I dont really care what makes it into Thailand, Singapore, Philipines or Indonesia.
I only care about what makes it into our Bolehland. I have been telling my mom her new Civic which she has anticipated would come turbocharged. Now its all gone up in smoke. Even a 60 years old auntie is passionate about Honda.
So that confirms Thailand won’t get the 1.5 turbo civic. What a shame. That really opens the market up to the sportier Mazda
Mazda where got turbo?
Proton CFE oso Euro 5 Engine. Honda City Euro 2. Common Honda. Why dun wan gv us better engine ??
Remember many CVT gearbox in old city broken due to wrong gearbox oil? Maybe the mechanics here have not enough skills to take care the new turbo engine
Is the SEA do not have enough knowledgeable technical support for this complexity turbo charged technology? i don’t see why is there a reason to not introduce it here. At least give the consumers to have more choices even though it could be pricier.
T0 Honda R&D chief Keiji Ohtsu,
Please be made aware that we Malaysians are not to be compared with other South East Asia countries. I believe your past experience from previous sales of the 9th generation brought you to think that Malaysians are not willing to pay more for better features. Let me tell you this that you had made a BIG MISTAKE. Most of us here are wiling to pay RM150,000 for the latest Honda Civic 1.5 litre touring series equipment with all the Honda Sensing Suite. I hope that this would change your mind to introduce the 1.5 litre turbo with Honda Sensing Suite here in SEA.
Sod off Honda. I was looking forward for the 1.5 Turbo Civic
Actually Honda should consider to bring in the 1.5 T Civic, for top spec at least…
Malaysia consumers are always willing to pay a little bit more for better cars.
Correct me if I’m wrong
Go for second hand conti. Smokes puny civic anytime anywhere
Buy recon civic in 10 years time
Dont support honda anymore, double standard for SEA market, unlike germany marques apply the same for all engine specs, f30 328i is the same engine for here and US.. Lousy Honda.
As long as its not a kimchi, it will have good RV
So sorry for Honda fans in Malaysia. A big loss to them.
Honda is ripping consumer, once again.
we can continue to use thier Old engine and the 5 speed old gearbox.
or even using some sluggish soft cvt in the b-segment.
Then go and buy Vios. 4 speeder old engine is much better ah?
Maybe Malaysia is different. In Malaysia , 1.6L and below get only RM90+ roadtax compare to ~RM380 for a 2.0L. Besides that car below 1.8L displacement get lower excise duty tax rates. If qualify as EEV even cheaper taxes. So we might be an exception like how we get the JDM Civic Type R previous gen .
all other company are racing to produce cleaner engine. where are our local manfacturers stand in this matter? i have a concept that may revolutionize the fuel efficiency without designing a brand new block and header design. how can i pitch the idea to be developed? my idea focuses on piston deactivation concept while minimizing the lost in power. someone who can help me develop my design to be marketed please do contact me. thx.
u want tebo but preve la…
wow, feels like being discriminated as a SEA region. what, big Honda dont think we SEA people dont deserve their latest tech? seems like we only deserve cheap ugly ass car like brio, and dinosaur tech engine.
Discrimination.
Damn Honda. You were on a hot streak these past few years and could have cement yourself as the #1 automaker in SEA with the turbo engines but you blew it
chill..let others become lab rat 1st..
Firstly, don’t Malaysia have the EEV incentive while Thailand has the CO2 emission tax break? Introducing the turbo engines can help to reduce the price of their vehicle and increase sales.
Secondly, we can get a 1.6L Turbo VW Passat for only RM170k here which is slightly less than the 2.4L Accord. Arguably, you are also getting a better spec in the Passat compared to the Accord. So I don’t understand how the NA engines will be less costly
Maybe becoz RnD cost to develop the engine.
He mentioned ‘depending on the market & region’. I think for Malaysia, it would make more sense to have the 1.5L turbo here due to our road tax structure. I don’t think Honda would be crazy to introduce 2.4L engine here as the top range for a Civic as the road tax would be a killer for a C segment car.
As above. Lol
I had high hopes when I saw the leaked pictures of the 10th generation Civic undergoing roadtests in Thailand with twin tail pipes (for US spec, twin tailpipes = 1.5T). Hope Honda Malaysia will bring in the 1.5T (eurospec) for the top of the line Civic here. Malaysian consumers are mature, and will buy this top of the line turbo Civic as a cheaper alternative to German turbo offerings.
Meaning honda japan doesnt give a shit on sea buyers, coz they know fools like us will still buy anyway, turbocharged or not. Don’t blame them, blame ourselves…
mr ohtsu got trauma when saw all the bad response on cfe turbo, so no vtec turbo for sea esp msia soon
Both has it pros and cons….NA bigger displacement, heavier leading to higher fuel consumption and emission. Higher revs for the car lover…
Turbos, smaller, lighter and more low end pull, fuel efficient and less pollutants in the air. More so can use lower RON. However, higher long term maintenance as there tend to operate at high temperatures esp in the tropics. Higher temperature and heat mean parts would less durable…you pick your poison.
padan muka, honda fanbois still buy despite being fed taik, now honda also learnt ‘wah low cost , high profit’ lets keep this model