By Makiko Kitamura and Alan Ohnsman
June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Takanobu Ito became a star at Honda Motor Co. with his work on the NSX sports car, the company’s most powerful model. Now, as chief executive officer, he’s focusing on fuel efficiency as Ford Motor Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. threaten Honda’s leading position in North America.
While Honda’s fleet is rated the most fuel-efficient in the U.S., Ford’s Fiesta subcompact gets up to 33 miles per gallon in combined city/highway driving, compared with 31 mpg for Honda’s rival Fit hatchback. Hyundai’s Sonata sedan tops Honda’s top- selling Accord in economy and horsepower, and its revamped Elantra compact promises to use less fuel than Honda’s Civic.
“Ford is coming back, and Hyundai is gaining market share,” said Tadashi Usui, an analyst at Moody’s K.K. in Tokyo. “The gap between Japanese automakers and rivals is shrinking.”
Honda, after axing its V-10 NSX supercar project in 2008, is redoubling efforts to boost fuel efficiency to fend off growing competition. Ito delayed the release of a revamped Civic compact after
telling engineers he was unhappy with its size and fuel economy, said Tomohiko Kawanabe, president of Honda’s research and development unit.
Even as factors including pricing and design shape research efforts, “fuel efficiency has become the first priority in our discussions,” Kawanabe said in an interview at Honda’s research center last month in Wako, west of Tokyo.
Risking Reputation
Honda’s U.S. sales gained 13 percent in the first five months of 2010, trailing industry growth of 17 percent. Ford’s rose 31 percent in the same period, while Hyundai’s sales grew 23 percent.
Japan’s second-largest carmaker has focused on only mild improvements in fuel economy recently, risking its “green” reputation, said Ed Kim, an industry analyst at AutoPacific Inc. in Tustin, California. For example, Honda uses 5-speed automatic transmissions as the industry adopted more efficient 6-speeds, and seems reluctant to use direct-injection and turbocharging technology, Kim said.
“Even before the green thing was big, they were into green,” said Kim, a former Hyundai product planner. “Over the last few years, they’ve been completely leapfrogged in new engine technologies.”
Honda’s U.S. fleet of Honda and Acura 2009 models averaged 23.6 mpg in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s fuel efficiency assessment, adjusted for real-world driving.
Hyundai- Kia group vehicles were second in the 2009 model-year survey, averaging 23.4 mpg.
Hyundai models alone, excluding those of Kia Motors Corp., exceeded Honda’s fleet with an adjusted average of 23.9 mpg, according to EPA.
Depositary SharesToyota Motor Corp. had an adjusted fleet average of 23.2 mpg, and Ford, with a 20.5 mpg fleet, ranked seventh.
Honda’s American depositary receipts, each representing one ordinary share, fell 9 cents to $29.90 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, have dropped 12 percent this year. The shares fell 1.5 percent to close at 2,720 yen in Tokyo.
Another motivation for Honda to raise vehicle efficiency is a U.S. regulation forcing an industrywide increase by model year 2016. Honda’s fleet must average 37.4 mpg by that time, a 50 percent improvement from about 26 mpg now, John Mendel, head of Honda’s U.S. sales operation, said June 8.
The global recession following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September 2008 also spurred Honda’s strategic shift, said Ito, who became CEO a year ago.
“In a certain sense, Lehman was a blessing,” Ito said in Tokyo last month
.
Unlike before the recession, price increases are tough to justify and vehicle size and fuel economy need to “conform to these times,” Kawanabe said.
Prius CompetitionExpanding Honda’s line of hybrid cars is part of the strategy. Honda plans to introduce a new hybrid Civic with a lithium-ion battery that can store twice the power of a nickel- metal hydride battery, Kawanabe said. The company will unveil a new hybrid version of the Fit later this year.
Honda’s Insight and Civic hybrids haven’t gained ground on Toyota’s Prius, the world’s top-selling hybrid. The Prius outsold the Insight 6-to-1 in the U.S. this year through May.
One reason may be fuel economy. Toyota’s hybrid gets 51 mpg in city driving, while the Insight gets 40 mpg. Honda Executive Vice President Koichi Kondo also said the Insight, a compact model in the U.S. compared with the midsize Prius, may be too small for Americans.
The company is also exploring stop-start technology, turbochargers and expanding continuously variable transmissions to boost fuel efficiency, said Hiroshi Ataka, a Tokyo-based analyst at consulting company IHS Global Insight.
Favoring Hydrogen Power
While Honda is researching electric cars, it’s less optimistic about demand for them than Nissan is and favors hydrogen-powered cars as the ultimate zero-emission vehicle.
Honda set up a lithium-ion battery venture with GS Yuasa Corp. and can shift gears quickly if necessary, Ataka said.
The company stopped producing the NSX supercar, its fastest production model, in 2005. It planned to reintroduce it this year. Instead, it built the low-priced, sporty CR-Z hybrid that arrives in the U.S. in August.
As a young engineer Ito consulted bullet-train designers to develop an all-aluminum body for the first-generation NSX when superiors considered the notion impossible, according to a company publication.
“I love sports cars,” Ito said at the Beijing Motor Show in April. “But we have to watch the economic situation and our purse strings.”
Source;
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-23/honda-s-ito-defends-efficiency-lead-as-hyundai-gains.html
Acura's 1991 NSX put an end to the era when sexy supercars could be unreliable, ill-handling, ergonomic disasters. The all-aluminum mid-engine marvel delivered laser-sharp handling and high-revving acceleration suffused with Japanese quality, while advancing the state of the production-car art with firsts like four-channel ABS, titanium con-rods, and electric power steering.
by Dan Edmunds
By Peter Lyon of www.motortrend.com
By Ben Whitworth 28 March 2011 12:15 I spotted the NSX heading London-bound up the A3 early on Saturday morning, on the way to attend my best mate’s stag do. It was pristine, its cherry red paintwork and unscarred five-spoke silver alloys glinting in the sunlight. Low, sleek and barrelling along at a very decent pace, it looked utterly gorgeous. I was instantly struck at just how fresh and modern it looked. For a car launched in 1989, the Honda NSX is still contemporary, clean and head-turningly handsome, pop-up headlamps and all. Honda NSX: still contemporary today Even today, the elements to the car’s development sound fantastic. The perfect distillation of its engineering prowess, it was developed as Honda basked in F1 success. Its mid-engined cab-forward styling was inspired by an F16 fighter jet. Ayrton Senna, Satoru Nakajima and Bobby Rahal honed its dynamics. It was the world’s first car to go into production with a all-aluminium monocoque chassis complete with a sophisticated extruded aluminium bodywork. The NSX's wailing 2977cc V6 V-TEC engine was fitted with titanium conrods – another world first – and it revved to 8000rpm. The suspension was fashioned entirely from forged aluminium. It had telepathic electric power steering. It was hand assembled by a hand-picked crew of just 200 engineers. It weighed just 1350kg. And, of course, the Honda NSX was a gem to drive. The NSX – a supercar ahead of the game The Honda was defined by its brilliant chassis balance and superb agility, qualities that showed its contemporary rivals like Ferrari 328 GTB and Porsche 911 the dynamic back door. Visibility was panoramic, the spacious cabin was an ergonomic delight and reliability was exceptional. But despite this deep-seated talent, the NSX never really took off. It was, perversely, not seen as exotic enough for a blue-blooded supercar. It was criticised as being mundane simply because it was easy to see out of, didn’t break down, didn’t try and spit you into the nearest ditch at every opportunity and had a straightforward cabin design. Our loss, really. I gave the driver a thumbs up as he peeled off the carriageway and he grinned, dropped a cog and nailed it up the exit ramp. The lucky bugger. I spent the rest of my trip up to London trying to figure out where on earth I could find the £40k for a low-mileage 1997 3.2-litre with a six-speed manual. Source (with better pics); http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/Community/Car-Magazines-Blogs/Ben-Whitworth/Remembering-the-curio-classics-the-1989-Honda-NSX/
By Makiko Kitamura and Alan Ohnsman
The Honda/Acura NSX could be revived as early as 2011, according to AutoBild. In an unsourced report, the German magazine says that a road-ready version of the HSV-010 GT racecar is being developed to fight the Lexus LFA.
A newly-built Honda NSX race car will compete in this weekend’s Britcar race at Brands Hatch.
Any cinephile petrolhead worth his salt will tell you underwater motoring requires the possession of a Lotus Esprit. But in the real world? As you see above, and in the epic video below, choose the Acura NSX.
The on-again, off-again next-generation Acura NSX sports car is pretty much off for good, at least as we have come to expect it. The low-slung, mid-engined, quasi-exotic sports car that Acura built all through the ‘90s and into a good part of the this millennium was expected to become a front-engine GT with extreme styling in its next iteration, but alas, due to many factors, the car has been shelved.
Well? Is it dead (for now) or is it alive? First off, Honda released word that the upcoming (and "faster than the Nissan GT-R") was cancelled due to current world economics. Then a few days later a few sites report that Honda is going to be showing how far they had gotten by showing off their wares at the upcoming Tokyo Motor Show. It appears that the reports were a translation error and that the NSX is indeed shelved. 
While Honda doesn’t seem to be a fan of V8s, a V10 is a whole different story. According to the company’s Executive Vice President Koichi Kondo, the V10 powered NSX is on the way and Honda will do all it can to make it the best sports car in its category.
Wow, this car has almost achieved cult status with the amount of renderings it is getting!
2010 is the expected year of the introduction of this car. Just a rendering folks. The next gen Acura NSX is supposed to be a Porche and GT-R killer. Easier said than done, I must say that the GT-R is going to be one helluva car.
Here's a sneak peak of what the next generation Acura (Honda pretty much every where else) NSX may look like.
