tigerhonaker
06-22-2006, 06:53 PM
Honda will introduce an entry-level four-door hybrid that will be more fuel-efficient than the current two-door Honda Insight. It would be priced below the $22,700 Civic Hybrid
Higher fuel prices spurring Honda to spend big on small cars
By LINDSAY CHAPPELL
AutoWeek | Published 05/23/06, 8:56 am et
Because gasoline prices are topping $3 a gallon, Honda is back in its element.
CEO Takeo Fukui, investing aggressively in small cars and fuel-saving engines, is planning a clean diesel, a new hybrid car and a new assembly plant in the United States.
Honda's plans suggest it wants to reclaim the industry's eco-friendly high ground. No more will Toyota Motor Corp., with its popular Prius hybrid, go unchallenged as the world's greenest carmaker.
Worldwide, the average Honda vehicle sold in 2010 will emit 5 percent less carbon dioxide than today, Fukui said last week at a press conference. That follows a 5 percent cut achieved from 2000 to 2005.
Setting carbon-dioxide-reduction targets for products and plants was an "industry first," Fukui said. Carbon dioxide is widely thought to cause global warming, and autos are a significant generator of the gas in the atmosphere.
Officials said Honda will introduce an entry-level four-door hybrid that will be more fuel-efficient than the current two-door Honda Insight. It would be priced below the $22,700 Civic Hybrid and badged as a Honda.
The Insight will be killed in September, said Richard Colliver, executive vice president for Honda and Acura sales at American Honda Motor Co.
Prius fighter
Colliver said the new nameplate will have a North American sales target of 100,000 a year. Last year, Toyota sold 107,897 Priuses in the United States.
Honda also said that in 2009 it will begin selling vehicles equipped with very clean diesel engines in the United States, a daunting technological challenge. The company said a four-cylinder diesel will lead the effort, but a V-6 diesel also is in development. It declined to say what vehicles would have the diesels or whether both Acura and Honda would sell them.
The company plans to spend $665 million on new and expanded North American factories. That will cover the construction of a Midwestern assembly plant to produce 200,000 more cars a year and a Canadian engine plant that will build 200,000 four-cylinder engines a year.
That announcement comes just weeks after Honda said it will trim its 2006 output of the midrange Honda Pilot SUV in Lincoln, Ala.
The spending, modest by global investment standards, will produce small vehicles and small engines. Since the late 1990s, Honda has invested in carving out a spot in the booming truck market, with the production of the large Odyssey minivan, Pilot SUV and the Ridgeline pickup.
Honda's green breakout
A list of new plans revealed last week shows Honda reasserting its identity as a small- car company with an environmentally friendly image. Plans include
* A new hybrid car with an annual sales target of 100,000
* A new North American plant to build more four-cylinder engines
* Two clean diesel engines, a four-cylinder and a V-6The game plan revealed last week would give Honda 300,000 additional annual North American sales - almost entirely in segments that have been the company's strong suit: small vehicles and four-cylinder engines.
Traditionally, Honda does not launch new factories with untested vehicles, so it is likely that the new U.S. plant will take over production of either the Civic or the Accord, both built in Ohio. That would allow the company, for example, to build more of its small SUV, the CR-V. The CR-V currently is sold in Europe with a diesel engine.
Honda would not say where the plant will be built. Larry Jutte, senior vice president for Honda of America Manufacturing Inc. in Marysville, Ohio, acknowledged that the project is in the final stages of site selection.
Last week, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels revealed that state officials there were working with Honda to secure options for a large site in his state. And The Plain Dealer newspaper in Cleveland reported that the company is considering a 1,060-acre site about 45 miles southwest of Columbus, Ohio.
Emphasizing Honda's new green message, the company said the new auto plant "will have the smallest environmental impact of any Honda automobile plant in North America." The company did not say how this will be accomplished.
Combined, the plans will allow Honda to boost the combined fuel efficiency of its U.S. fleet by 5 percent by 2010, said Ed Cohen, American Honda vice president of government affairs. He said Honda's corporate average fuel economy - or CAFE - average for all vehicles would reach 30.6 mpg at that time, up from 29.2 today.
Reclaiming its identity
Once the new Japan-built hybrid and the new U.S. plant come on line, Honda and Acura are expected to have an additional 300,000 units of capacity for North American sales, Colliver said.
If Honda sold all of those, its North American sales would rise 18 percent to about 2 million per year. And that might not be all. Officials in Japan hint that Honda may expand its 30,000-car plant in El Salto, Mexico, within the next three years.
The investment would take place just as U.S. consumers are beginning to display a 1980s-style awareness of fuel economy. Rising fuel prices are already pushing some buyers out of light trucks and into cars with smaller engines.
Honda's sales push in North America will coincide with a global sales drive. Besides the new North American plants, Honda is adding a plant in Japan and sharply expanding production in China, Brazil, India and elsewhere.
All together, Honda foresees global vehicle sales of more than 4.5 million automobiles in 2010. That would be up 33.7 percent from 3,365,000 in 2005.
http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060523/FREE/60522014&Profile=1041
Higher fuel prices spurring Honda to spend big on small cars
By LINDSAY CHAPPELL
AutoWeek | Published 05/23/06, 8:56 am et
Because gasoline prices are topping $3 a gallon, Honda is back in its element.
CEO Takeo Fukui, investing aggressively in small cars and fuel-saving engines, is planning a clean diesel, a new hybrid car and a new assembly plant in the United States.
Honda's plans suggest it wants to reclaim the industry's eco-friendly high ground. No more will Toyota Motor Corp., with its popular Prius hybrid, go unchallenged as the world's greenest carmaker.
Worldwide, the average Honda vehicle sold in 2010 will emit 5 percent less carbon dioxide than today, Fukui said last week at a press conference. That follows a 5 percent cut achieved from 2000 to 2005.
Setting carbon-dioxide-reduction targets for products and plants was an "industry first," Fukui said. Carbon dioxide is widely thought to cause global warming, and autos are a significant generator of the gas in the atmosphere.
Officials said Honda will introduce an entry-level four-door hybrid that will be more fuel-efficient than the current two-door Honda Insight. It would be priced below the $22,700 Civic Hybrid and badged as a Honda.
The Insight will be killed in September, said Richard Colliver, executive vice president for Honda and Acura sales at American Honda Motor Co.
Prius fighter
Colliver said the new nameplate will have a North American sales target of 100,000 a year. Last year, Toyota sold 107,897 Priuses in the United States.
Honda also said that in 2009 it will begin selling vehicles equipped with very clean diesel engines in the United States, a daunting technological challenge. The company said a four-cylinder diesel will lead the effort, but a V-6 diesel also is in development. It declined to say what vehicles would have the diesels or whether both Acura and Honda would sell them.
The company plans to spend $665 million on new and expanded North American factories. That will cover the construction of a Midwestern assembly plant to produce 200,000 more cars a year and a Canadian engine plant that will build 200,000 four-cylinder engines a year.
That announcement comes just weeks after Honda said it will trim its 2006 output of the midrange Honda Pilot SUV in Lincoln, Ala.
The spending, modest by global investment standards, will produce small vehicles and small engines. Since the late 1990s, Honda has invested in carving out a spot in the booming truck market, with the production of the large Odyssey minivan, Pilot SUV and the Ridgeline pickup.
Honda's green breakout
A list of new plans revealed last week shows Honda reasserting its identity as a small- car company with an environmentally friendly image. Plans include
* A new hybrid car with an annual sales target of 100,000
* A new North American plant to build more four-cylinder engines
* Two clean diesel engines, a four-cylinder and a V-6The game plan revealed last week would give Honda 300,000 additional annual North American sales - almost entirely in segments that have been the company's strong suit: small vehicles and four-cylinder engines.
Traditionally, Honda does not launch new factories with untested vehicles, so it is likely that the new U.S. plant will take over production of either the Civic or the Accord, both built in Ohio. That would allow the company, for example, to build more of its small SUV, the CR-V. The CR-V currently is sold in Europe with a diesel engine.
Honda would not say where the plant will be built. Larry Jutte, senior vice president for Honda of America Manufacturing Inc. in Marysville, Ohio, acknowledged that the project is in the final stages of site selection.
Last week, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels revealed that state officials there were working with Honda to secure options for a large site in his state. And The Plain Dealer newspaper in Cleveland reported that the company is considering a 1,060-acre site about 45 miles southwest of Columbus, Ohio.
Emphasizing Honda's new green message, the company said the new auto plant "will have the smallest environmental impact of any Honda automobile plant in North America." The company did not say how this will be accomplished.
Combined, the plans will allow Honda to boost the combined fuel efficiency of its U.S. fleet by 5 percent by 2010, said Ed Cohen, American Honda vice president of government affairs. He said Honda's corporate average fuel economy - or CAFE - average for all vehicles would reach 30.6 mpg at that time, up from 29.2 today.
Reclaiming its identity
Once the new Japan-built hybrid and the new U.S. plant come on line, Honda and Acura are expected to have an additional 300,000 units of capacity for North American sales, Colliver said.
If Honda sold all of those, its North American sales would rise 18 percent to about 2 million per year. And that might not be all. Officials in Japan hint that Honda may expand its 30,000-car plant in El Salto, Mexico, within the next three years.
The investment would take place just as U.S. consumers are beginning to display a 1980s-style awareness of fuel economy. Rising fuel prices are already pushing some buyers out of light trucks and into cars with smaller engines.
Honda's sales push in North America will coincide with a global sales drive. Besides the new North American plants, Honda is adding a plant in Japan and sharply expanding production in China, Brazil, India and elsewhere.
All together, Honda foresees global vehicle sales of more than 4.5 million automobiles in 2010. That would be up 33.7 percent from 3,365,000 in 2005.
http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060523/FREE/60522014&Profile=1041