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]

Toyota may have brought the first modern hybrid gasoline-electric car to market in Japan 10 years ago, but Honda beat them to the US market by a few months with the Insight. The Insight was discontinued last year after several years of slow sales. Same deal with the Accord hybrid. The Civic hybrid continues on at a reasonable pace, one that is considerably slower than the Prius. Earlier this year, American Honda Product Planning Manager John Watts indicated that the company was less enamored with hybrids than they used to be and more emphasis would be placed on diesels.

Watts said that Honda's hybrid efforts would be focused on smaller cars for urban environments while larger cars would use diesel engines. Honda apparently has big plans for the new small dedicated hybrid car that they will be introducing in 2009. Honda is targeting 200,000 annual sales for the new hybrid and hopes that ten percent of U.S. sales will be hybrids by 2010. The company's US sales are expected to hit 1.59 million in 2008. To help their future cars come to market, Honda is building a $424 million research center in Japan to develop alternative drive vehicles like hybrids and fuel cell vehicles.

[Source: CNN]

For every major auto show these days, Honda presents a gallery of images and videos on its corporate website. For the 40th Tokyo Motor Show, which is now taking place, Honda is highlighting not just the CR-Z hybrid and FCX and Puyo, but also the good old Civic hybrid and wheelchair accessibility.

You can watch a video of the new CR-Z hybrid concept here (although I'll admit I wasn't able to watch the whole thing. It's supposed to be a minute long, but it kept stalling after 15 seconds when I tried to watch). The full speech by Honda president and CEO Takeo Fukui can be seen (well, I had the same hanging video problem) and read here. Hm, stalling video and no high-res images? I think Autoblog does it better.

[Source: Honda]

Although Honda has no plans to pursue plug-in hybrid vehicles for the time being and they aren't taking Toyota's shotgun approach of putting their hybrid system in everything they build, they haven't given up on hybrids. Honda is focusing their efforts where they feel they will be most effective. That means that larger cars, like the Accord, and crossovers and trucks will be getting clean diesel engines.

Smaller cars that mostly commute in urban areas will use hybrid systems because they are most likely to be able to take advantage of regenerative braking. Honda CEO Takeo Fukui spoke to reporters ahead of the Tokyo Motor Show about the new dedicated hybrid vehicle the company will introduce in 2009. Unlike the Insight, which had limited appeal due to its small size and only two seats, the new model will be larger and be built in much higher volumes. Honda is working aggressively to lower the cost premium of the hybrid system to no more $1,750 and down the road it could be combined with diesel engines for even greater efficiency.

[Source: Reuters]