Honda Cars : Talking with Honda’s CEO About F1, Sports Cars, Stability Assist vs. Stability Control | 2013 New Honda Car Reviews 0

While visiting Honda R&D headquarters in Japan’s Tochigi prefecture to test-drive the new Acura RLX’s drivetrain systems, we sat down with Honda CEO Takanobu Ito. Covering everything from Honda’s return to Formula 1 to the new infotainment systems, Ito-san took advantage of our short time together by sharing many of his intentions for Honda in the future.

With F1 excitement increasing in the U.S., it didn’t take long for Ito to explain the automaker’s plans for the sport:

“We have not decided anything yet. However, we consider it’s very crucial for Honda to take on the challenge of participating in different sports. Unfortunately after the financial crisis we have decided to exit Formula 1.”

Hearing disappointed sighs from the audience, Ito responded:

“We have been putting more effort into other motorsports. For Honda to enhance brand image and brand perception, as well as to motivate our own associates and also to fulfill expectations of our customers and society, we believe that two key words important to us are motorsports and challenges.”

Manufacturers are under constant pressure to make cars safer. When asked how Honda manages to do this while also achieving an enjoyable driving experience, Ito shared a personal anecdote:

“Before assuming the position of CEO at Honda I worked in R&D and I witnessed the development of Vehicle Stability Assist technology. At one time there had been a discussion about if the different names of the same system need to be standardized or unified so customers don’t avoid the different names. Toyota insisted that at the end of the name the system should be called something ‘Control.’ I on the other hand believed [that] until the last minute the driver, or human being, should be responsible for delivering the vehicle.

Ito continued:
“In that context I believe that we should respect the driver’s intentions and will. That’s why I advocated the term ‘Assist’ rather than ‘Control.’ Honda’s direction is the driver should be responsible for having fun and driving safely. Under certain scenarios safety and fun sometime conflict with one another, however we would like to respect the driver’s will as much as possible. Our principal philosophy is the car should not control the driver; the driver should enjoy actually driving.”

After listening to a question about declining sales among younger buyers in automotive markets worldwide, Ito explained what might be the cause:
“I think there are two factors behind what’s been happening. The first and most important thing is for young people to buy cars they need to find automobiles in general interesting and they must be motivated that they want to buy it or they want to drive it. I believe, though I can’t speak on behalf of my entire industry, we have become a little bit complacent in our efforts to really build a real fun and exciting car that is attractive to those people.”

When pushed if Honda has any specific plans to cure this complacency and take the market back, Ito commented that the company should aim to provide cars that are affordable and have a low cost of ownership, with increased fuel efficiency and attractive styling.

Having been an integral part of the original NSX’s development, Ito also commented on whether he hopes to reintroduce sports cars to Honda’s lineup. The new NSX will be a flagship, but what about more affordable fun cars?

“To be honest with you I’m willing to do it. First of all the main thing is we are successful in developing the direct injection engine and that is done on the Accord. We are working hard so that we can apply this direct injection technology to other engines soon so we are able to improve performance as well as efficiency, and this is the first step.”

Some of us at Motor Trend have been anxious for an upgrade to Honda’s usable but sometimes outdated center-stack infotainment systems. Who better to ask when we can expect an upgrade:

“Starting with the RLX, we will be putting in the most innovative information center onboard. We’ve also started putting something into Accord as well. Either way this is something we are accelerating our efforts in. In Japan we live off of a very advanced initiative, so what we are trying to do is give each and every car a communication function and then based on that information we have a system where from the head office we can offer comprehensive user services. Right now efforts are underway to provide a similar service in the U.S.”

Source;
http://wot.motortrend.com/talking-with-hondas-ceo-about-f1-sports-cars-stability-assist-vs-stability-control-307681.html#axzz2GJcSvK5B

Honda Cars : The Genius Behind Honda's Design Excellence | 2013 New Honda Car Reviews 0

Here's an intersting read....

By Adil Jal Darukhanawala
On a recent visit to the Honda R & D facility in Wako, Japan, our Editor in Chief Adil Jal Darukhanawala was enlightened by one of the most creative minds at Honda's design stable, Mr Nobuki Ebisawa, General Manager, Honda R & D Co. Ltd. Here is the exclusive interview.

AJD: They say the visual aspect of the car is what turns on many motorists to go out, look at it, consider it and then buy it. One of the key elements in this strategy is in the realm of the designers. No one plays this better, emotionally, visually, physically, to convey every sense of the term where passion, dynamism, utility, and also practicality comes into the picture. I’m standing here in one very famous design studio at Honda's R&D Company at Wacko in Japan. This place did the first designs for two great Honda badges – the Civic and the Accord. Today it is churning out cars for the next generation. And we are going to speak to the person who heads it, runs it with a lot of skill, technology and passion going all the way back to the qualities endowed by Soichiro Honda, the company founder. I’m going to introduce to you Ebisawa-san, who is the heart and soul of Honda’s design studio.

Ebisawa-san, welcome to ZigWheels. Can you tell us about Honda design. What is the real Honda design philosophy, the DNA.

EB: Honda's DNA is represented by the two cars that we launched when we got into the automotive market, the S500 which is a very small sports car, and the other one is the T360 which is a small truck. The fact that those two cars were launched into the market almost simultaneously, this represents a key factor of the Honda DNA. The S500 is a sportscar which represents the dynamism and fun of cars. The other one is represented by the small truck which represents the mobility, the functionality of transporting people and goods. Dynamism and functionality – those form the core, the main axis of Honda’s DNA.

AJD: Very importantly, Honda came from motorcycles into cars. How much of the motorcycle rider do you still keep in mind when you think about evolving cars? Do you want to keep him in the same Honda family when he moves from motorcycles to cars?

EB: Of course, for motorcycles the first thing that comes to mind is the fun of riding, which connects to the dynamism of automobiles that we talked about earlier. At the same time, the motorcycle has the minimum and really efficient functionality in terms of mobility or moving people and goods. In that sense, even in motorcycles I believe that the combination of functionality and dynamism have been the key core in the design. IT is fair to say that we are developing motorcycles and automobiles based on the same DNA, with the same core.

AJD: Honda has moved across from a lot of different concepts - the sports car which you spoke about, the S500, and the truck as well. You were also the originator of the very small mini van, the Step Wagon. But I have never seen Honda pursue the Step Wagon concept outside Japan, whereas the other Japanese manufacturers took the small vans outside of Japan.

EB: It is true that we are not selling the Step Wagon outside Japan, however we are selling, for example, a model called Freed in Thailand and the Odyssey in the US as well. If you just look at the Step Wagon, we aimed it at the Japanese domestic market and we wanted to maximize the value of this car for the domestic market. That is how we stand right now.

AJD: This brings me to a very fundamental question. Many a times Japanese automakers have been accused of being very insular, looking only within Japan and not trying to take those concepts outside Japan. What you mention about the Step Wagon is very similar. This is different from what Maruti Suzuki has done with its Eeco and Omni, which are very similar in concept to the Step Wagon.

EB: I guess Suzuki has its own ideas, its own thinking. We are thinking of global cars, and when we say global cars, our four pillars are the Accord, the Civic, the CR-V and the Fit, or Jazz as it is known in India. Our strategy is to promote those four pillars all over the world and at the same time we try to come up with cars that are suited to the local needs of the different regions of the world and deploy some models there. That is our overall strategy. This is because even if you took the same car, depending on the market or the customers, depending on how they are accepted and how they are positioned is different from one market to another. So while we maintain those pillars very solidly, at the same time we try to tailor region dedicated cars that are finely suited to the needs of those markets.

AJD: Then you also have something like the City which we saw for Asia, and we also have the new small concept that is coming for the emerging markets. So that’s a change in your thought process, is it?

EB: The pillars remain unchanged. It is true that so far in the past when we talk about market-dedicated cars, we had cars targeted towards the Japan market or US market. We have many of those, that is true. Against that backdrop, it is true that the City was the first car that was targeted at the Asian market, and the small car here is the one that is targeted towards India, and to be deployed across Asia as well.

AJD: Very importantly, how much of a focus in design terms will come across the emerging market in the world which is Asia, because so far everything was focused etiher towards the US, Europe or Japan. How much will it now veer towards countries like India, China? Because they have very different sets of operating principles in play, and also local sensibilities are different from Europe and USA.

EB: First, we launched the City for Asia, next will be followed by the small car focusing on India first. We still don’t know what the acceptance will be for those cars yet. So what we would like to do first is to see how the market reacts to those models and how much acceptance those cars will see. And I believe that the proper sequence of events will be once we see how those cars are accepted in these markets and if necessary, come up with new models for those markets. Of course we do realize that Indian and other Asian nations are very critical, important to the future of this growth going forward.

For the rest of the article, follow this link;

http://www.zigwheels.com/news-features/auto-insight/the-genius-behind-hondas-design-excellence/7380/2

Honda Cars : Question and Answer with Honda CEO Takanobu Ito | 2013 New Honda Car Reviews 0

Honda's new CEO Takanobu Ito talks to Autocar about the problems with recycled carbonfibre and why he can't sell fuel cell cars.

Do you plan to give us more cars in the future with more platform sharing?
To be honest, we don’t sell a huge variety of cars in Europe. To sell a large variety would undermine our investment efficiency and impact our business. We want to respond to our customers’ needs, so for future cars we will try to offer more varied cars on the same platform and we are revisiting our development in that respect. We will try to reduce the number of platforms, but this will take time.

In Europe Toyota is seen as the green car company, despite Honda’s long history with hybrids. How do you address this?
Our European sales people are largely to blame. We tried to enhance our position with the Civic hybrid but failed. But the CR-Z and Insight will help us enhance awareness that Honda is a green car maker. We also want to introduce the FCX to Europe and have started testing here.

Talking of green technology, what happened to the clean diesels you were working on?
It was too challenging to produce a commercialised clean diesel. We got it to work at a research and development level, but we couldn’t make it work commercially. But we haven’t abandoned clean diesel research, and we’re still working on the technology.

Honda doesn’t believe electric vehicles have much of a future, yet you are working on battery-electric cars. Why?
The performance of batteries is evolving and there are possibilities. But the energy that can be stored is less than an internal combustion engine can produce, and with current battery technology electric vehicles are city commuters. But they could be used as a second car, with an internal combustion-engined car as the first vehicle. We are in the midst of considering what can be done with an electric commuter car.

Honda has, from an early stage, worked on fuel cell vehicles. Battery EVs are heavy, not fun to drive and aren’t reliable, and when it comes to cars lighter is better. FCVs are going in that direction.

So when do you think you’ll be selling fuel cell cars?
We don’t have any plans to sell them as there isn’t a hydrogen infrastructure to support them, and they would be very expensive. Infrastructure is key to the adoption of fuel cell vehicles.

And the cost?
We can do cost reduction and mass production of the technology. It’s simple to produce fuel cells; it’s the chemicals they use that cost money, along with the precious metals. But we can cut the cost of those, too.

What’s happened to the small sub-Jazz car that was mentioned last year?
The recession has caused our business to go through difficult times, and we had to revise our business plan, which has slowed development. Our priority now is to increase sales of the Jazz in Europe. But we haven’t given up on the small car. We’d like to try it in Asia first.

Would you consider a joint venture with another car maker?
I don’t imagine Honda seeking a partner. But if another car maker approached Honda, what would happen? Well, the final products coming out of the factory would have to be Honda products. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a partnership, but I can’t see a need for it now.

Volkswagen is working on recycled carbonfibre for cars. Is that something you’re interested in?
The problem with carbonfibre is that you have to bake it at high temperature and at high pressure, which is not suitable for mass production. It’s difficult to recycle, too; recycled carbonfibre can’t be reused in automobiles. That’s why I don’t think it will be used in mass-produced cars.

Source;
http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle.aspx?AR=245649#