Honda Cars : Honda project aims to fight global warming | 2013 New Honda Car Reviews 0

The city of Saitama in Japan is teaming up with one of the country’s leading car manufacturers in a bid to fight global warming and realise a sustainable, low carbon society with electric vehicles.

Honda has joined forces with the city on the E-KIZUNA project, which will test the use of urban electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles and electric scooters with Honda also planning to test its Honda Smart Home System in the city next year – a comprehensive energy management system.

The Honda Smart Home System provides heat and electricity for the home and produces power for electric mobility. Honda also hopes to explore the system’s potential to produce electricity for the household in the event of a disaster.

It's overall aim is to reduce household CO2 emissions to half of 2000 levels by 2015. In particular it will focus on: creating a disaster-resistant city of the future through a variety of energy supplies and electric mobility; constructing an electric charging safety net; simulating demand and applying incentives such as promoting the shared use of electric scooters for commercial use; and tailoring education initiatives to local needs.

In addition, Honda has announced that it will begin sales of an all-new household micro combined heat and power gas engine cogeneration unit through gas utilities across Japan, this month. It will serve as the core unit of a household cogeneration system and burn natural or liquid propane gas to generate electricity and heat water.

Source;
http://www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk/blog/index.php/2011/05/24/honda-project-aims-to-fight-global-warming/

Honda Cars : Oldest Honda plant shifts to meeting green demand | 2013 New Honda Car Reviews 0

SAYAMA, Japan — Honda has adjusted production as global demand shifts to small and greener models, turning its oldest Japanese plant into an assembly line for the Fit subcompact for the U.S. market.
But the Saitama plant, which employs 5,500 people, is also showing signs of hard times - running just a single shift instead of the previous two shifts, halving overall plant production to 1,100 vehicles a day.
The Honda Motor Co. factory, shown to reporters Wednesday, used to mostly make bigger models like the Odyssey minivan and Accord sedan.
The plant, which opened in 1964 in this Tokyo suburb, has successfully responded to shifting consumer tastes, as the recent rise in gas prices and concerns about global warming make smaller models like the Fit more in demand, according to Honda.
It began mass-producing the Fit for U.S. export in April, transferring some of that production from another Japanese plant, in Suzuka, central Japan, which is too busy these days churning out the hit Insight hybrid.
Tomonori Arai, a general manager, said Honda was able to efficiently move production because it has standardized robotics parts and other assembly procedures.
The efforts to unify assembly line methods also make it easier to start making cars at new plants, including those abroad. But there are no plans so far to start making the Fit in the U.S., Arai said.
Before such efforts, which began several years ago, it required more than seven months to launch a new product at Saitama. Today, it was able to start Fit production in just three months.
That underlines ongoing efforts at Japanese automakers to cut costs and stay nimble as this nation's top industry gets hammered by the global downturn, especially the slump in the critical North American market.
During a tour of the plant, Honda demonstrated how the same line was able to produce different models smoothly.
It also showed how robotics parts on big swinging arms got changed automatically in a matter of minutes, so that the same line could switch from putting together a Freed hatchback to an Odyssey.
Other automakers, including Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp., boast flexible production methods and are shifting to smaller models and hybrids.
Honda, with its strength in small models, stayed in the black for the fiscal year ended March 31, and has fared relatively better than Toyota, which sank to its worst yearly loss.
Still, before the financial crisis, the Saitama plant used to have two worker shifts for each of its two assembly lines, keeping the plant running from early in the morning until near midnight.
Now, it is down to one daytime shift.
The plant has enough workers for two shifts, but global demand would have to pick up significantly, boosting needs per line by about 350 vehicles a day to revert to two shifts, Arai said.
"I wish I knew when this could happen," he said. "We have no plans now to return to two shifts."

Source;
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jZjw78EB8npqzwd2v6evapt_gW3g