While many other car-makers (with the notable exception of Toyota) are jumping on the lithium ion bandwagon for new hybrid models, Honda will stick with nickel metal hydride for now. Honda President Takeo Fukui told Automotive News that lithium ion batteries are not yet reliable or durable enough for high volume applications. When Honda debuts a new dedicated hybrid model early next year to take on the Prius, it will continue to use nickel metal hydride batteries.

Honda hopes to top 200,000 annual sales with its new hybrid model, a car that is expected to be priced below the current Civic hybrid. Honda has chosen to use a lithium battery in its FCX Clarity fuel cell car, but those will be very low volume initially and much more expensive. The continued use of nickel probably has as much to do with cost as anything else at this point. Given Honda's price and volume targets, there is probably no lithium battery available right now to the meet the need. According to Fukui, the new model is being engineered to allow for a running change to lithium when the batteries do meet the company's specifications.

[Source: Automotive News - Sub. req'd]

Honda has big plans for the future. In addition to their already admirable goals of CO2 reductions, they called out from the rooftops earlier this month that they are going to be building next-generation clean diesel engines that will meet the Tier 2 BIN 5 NOx emissions standards here in the states, but will be selling them in Japan as well.

They did not announce that they planned on selling their flexible fuel iterations of the Civic and Fit here in the U.S. that those fortunate fellows in South America have been enjoying since the end of last year, but they did see fit to brag about their sales figures: 10,000 units, where over half of the Civics sold were flexible fuel models. Swell.

The best news here is that Honda will be selling a dedicated new hybrid model by 2009. Even better, pricing is intended to fall below that of the Civic Hybrid. As long as it's more practical than the Insight, I think we'll all be pretty happy with it at that price point.

[Source: Honda]

We mentioned this on AutoblogGreen over the holidays, but I came across another aspect of the claim by Honda President Takeo Fukui's statement that he expects hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to be widely available in 2018 that bears thinking about. As Sam mentioned in his original post, Fukui believes that within a decade after the FCX is released, fuel cell cars will be available if the cost of these cars comes down to about a tenth of what they are now.

The problem is that all of these hydrogen fuel cell prototypes cost about a million bucks. One-tenth of that is $100,000. Sure, there is a market for one-hundred-grand green vehicles (see example A, the Tesla Roadster), but how many FCXs (or whatever the initial production model will be called) does Honda expect to sell at that price? Fukui told the Kyodo news agency that he's confident customers will buy these cars if they cost no more than 10 million yen ($84,000). Really? I can see a hydrogen car in the mid-fifties doing all right, but if Honda thinks they can do well with an $84,000 hydrogen car in 2018, well after when Tesla says they'll have their $30,000 EV sedan on the road, I think Fukui is in for a big let down.

Readers, your thoughts?

[Source: AP in the Suburban Chicago News]

Honda has already announced their plans to make a production version of the fuel cell powered FCX concept available to the public in limited quantities starting in 2008. Now in an interview with Kyodo News in Japan, Honda President Takeo Fukui has stated that he expects that fuel cell cars will be widely available on the market within ten years after the launch of the FCX. In order to make the fuel cells widely available at an affordable price, Fukui says that they still need to reduce the amount of catalytic noble metals in the stack, improve hydrogen storage, and reduce the cost and increase the availability of hydrogen production. The cost of the cars would have to come down to about one tenth of where they are today.

[Source: Kyodo News - subscription req'd]

Honda president Takeo Fukui has denied newspaper reports that Honda hybrids will be built a new Indiana factory that opens in 2008. Sources say the Civic will be built there, but all Fukui said was that Honda will build small vehicles with 4-cylinder engines. Honda currently makes the Civic Hybrid but has announced it will build a smaller hybrid vehicle in 2009. The automaker will also introduce diesel engines to American consumers. In other Honda news, Fukui said the company's engineers will focus on profitable cars while a new subsidiary takes over development of minicars for the Japan market.

Related:

• Honda CEO speech presents green initiatives

[Source: Kae Inoue & Tetsuya Komatsu / Bloomberg]

Recently Honda announced plans to create new ultra clean diesel engines for their vehicles to meet all the latest emission standards. Their design would differ from the Mercedes BlueTec technology because the new catalytic converter would produce ammonia on board to use for treating the nitrogen oxide. This would be a zero maintenance design that requires no periodic replenishment of the urea supply. Initial indications were that a 2.2L four cylinder diesel would be built for use in various passenger car models starting in 2009. In an interview with Automotive News CEO Takeo Fukui revealed that Honda will also be building a V-6 diesel for their bigger vehicles like the Ridgeline pickup, the Odyssey van and the Pilot and MDX SUVs. The new V-6 diesels will also meet all the new diesel emission standards for cutting particulate and nitrogen oxide emissions.

[Source: Automotive News - subscription required]

Here's a short, interesting opinion piece by Matt Timion, owner and operator of GasSavers.org. He first acknowledges that since Honda's entry into the U.S. automotive market in 1971, the automaker has been "more concerned with fuel economy and emissions than any other manufacturer." As partial evidence, he points to Honda's continual offering of at least one super mileage vehicle starting with their CVCC technology moving on to the CRX HF, the Civic VX and the Insight.

Matt's argument gets interesting when he attributes an attitude shift at Honda towards bigger profits with company founder Soichiro Honda's death in 1991. He says that at the time "an observable change in Honda's business model and priorities surfaced."

I do think that there's some truth to what Matt's saying as the '90s brought Honda's foray into SUVs and minivans, however, I wouldn't call it "a decade of bad decisions" like Matt. In Popular Science's interview, Honda's CEO Takeo Fukui stresses that as a global company they need to cater to the desires of the consumer. He says, "Americans love big cars, and they will want them whenever possible. Honda will, of course, give them what they want, but our cars will always be the most fuel-efficient in their respective classes." The '90s for Honda were really about expanding their model line-up beyond the Civic, Accord and Prelude as well as moving the Acura brand past the Integra and Legend. This lead the company to abandon its capital-draining Formula 1 presence starting in 1993 and continuing through the 1999 season (only supplying engines through Mugen in the interim). And don't forget the NSX was Soichiro Honda's last great project.

Soichiro Honda was a brilliant man who believed in extracting the most he could possibly derive from any power plant, and this means efficiency as well as performance. The substance of this response is not to take anything away from Honda's spectacular track record in low emissions and high mileage, but simply to underline the fact that we should not confuse causes and effects as we struggle in finding widely accepted incentives for reducing emissions and developing alternative fuels for the future.

In any case, Matt, we think you're doing some great work with your website and wish you the best.

[Source: American Chronicle]

On a recent trip to Honda's research and development center in Utsunomia, Japan, Popular Science got an opportunity to conduct a 10-minute interview with Takeo Fukui, Honda's president and CEO, as well as take the FCX fuel cell concept car out for a spin.

First, the test drive. Joe Brown from Popular Science expresses early trepidation about entering a high-speed bank with a one-off, multi-million dollar concept car, but assures us that even at 92 mph the car felt completely sure-footed. Because of Honda's new vertical fuel cell stack, the engineers were able to significantly lower the car's center of gravity whereas most fuel cell concept cars tend to either look like or be SUVs or tall crossovers. The vertical fuel cell stack also nearly eliminates the need for an active pump to remove the water byproduct as gravity does most of the work.

In addition to its high-speed stability, it sounds like the FCX will command a decent amount of respect off the line as Brown estimates a 0-60 time of 7 seconds.

On the ergonomical side of things, Brown notes a glowing ball display located in the middle of the instrument panel. A Honda engineer informs him that when using the maximum amount of hydrogen, it turns red. I imagine it's the fuel cell equivalent to red-line. While "red-balling" the Honda, though, Brown admits that he was so distracted that he almost put the FCX in the wall.

As for the interview, there isn't anything particularly new, but Honda fans will undeniably enjoy the read. Honda CEO Takeo Fukui pays tribute to the late Soichiro Honda, the company founder, for basing the company's identity on efficient engines starting with 4-stroke motorcycles. He says that Honda "will always be the most fuel-efficient in their respective classes" even when it comes to the upcoming V-10-powered NSX.

When asked about hydrogen, Fukui essentially gives a poetic definition of hydrogen being an efficient energy carrier with a fuel source that he envisions to be solar and notes that Honda is currently working on advanced solar technologies.

The interview ends on the subject of legacy. Fukui invokes a passionate notion of civic duty as he says he would like to be remembered for "making a positive difference in as many ways as possible."

Related:

• Honda unveils diesel, FCX sports car

[Source: Popular Science, Thanks for the tip, Tommie]

One fact is fairly straightforward: Honda is working on a new diesel engine for the U.S. market in 2009 that will meet stringent U.S. and California emissions standards while using 30 percent less gasoline, according to this article from Bloomberg out today.

The delicious part of the news is both the details of the story (Takeo Fukui, who worked on the successful Civic back in 1973, is behind the new engine, the way Honda and Toyota feed of each other to the top of the green automotive world) and the way the story is told (with lots of background and sources like an auto industry consultant at Casesa Shapiro Group LLC in New York and Jon Spallino, whose family you may have seen in advertising materials and who leases the Honda fuel cell prototype). This article is worth your time if you're interested in why Honda and Toyota are doing so darn well selling cars around the world.

[Source: Bloomberg]

In his mid-year speech yesterday, Honda CEO Takeo Fukui said Honda would focus on three core areas to increase the company's profits and brand in the coming years. According to Honda's synopsis of the speech, the three areas are:

"1) Establishing advanced manufacturing systems and capabilities
 2) Strengthening the foundation for overseas growth
 3) Strengthening the commitment to reduce Honda's environmental footprint"

Most exciting to AutoblogGreen readers is the third area, which means Honda will work on a cleaner diesel engine, an all-new hybrid, and a new dedicated family hybrid that will be sold in 2009 at a lower price than the Civic Hybrid.

Fukui also mentioned Honda's voluntary CO2 emissions reductions. While reducing carbon dioxide emissions is worth it, we've just got to state for the record that cutting emissions in these baby steps while doubling vehicle production capacity in India and increasing it by 120,000 units in China (two goals also mentioned by Fukui in his speech), overall damage to the environment is not going to decrease.

[Source: Honda]