So the final shoe is dropping. "Honda Reportedly to Announce Plans for Plug-in Hybrid and Electric Car Tuesday" Green Car Advisor After fruitlessly chasing the hydrogen mirage, Honda is climbing on the electric bandwagon. They know, otherwise, Honda will be history. This follows recent news of Honda stopping the sale of iconic Civic in gas only form in Japan. I hope this is the beginning of the end of ICEage. :cheer2:
Interesting... so how would they be going about making a PHV? Is IMA able to accept a PHV setup? or will they create a full hybrid?
This is soooo the Japanese way. At least in terms of product secrecy and announcements. This is typically what we hear.... Jan - The technology to build cost-effective EVs or PHEVs won't be ready for at least 10 years. Feb - The technology to build cost-effective EVs or PHEVs won't be ready for at least 10 years. Mar - The technology to build cost-effective EVs or PHEVs won't be ready for at least 10 years. Apr - We will begin mass-producing EVs and PHEVs in the very near future, you can expect them in the showrooms soon and in fact we have already been testing them on public roads for quite a while now. How many times have we heard this now from each of the Japanese manufacturers? Sandbag, sandbag, sandbag.... blam.
It gets expensive too. Motor size/power becomes the question then. Honda's is tiny (10/15 kW). Hyundai is much better (30 kW), but not what you'd really want for sustained EV travel. .
Great news! They are moving forward. Next gen HCH (2011) will use Lithium-ion. Hopefully that will enable the rear seats to fold down.
As a shareholder, I applaud any hybrid/PHEV announcements. I sure hope they drop the hydrogen BS cars yesterday.
No doubt Honda & Toyota have been experimenting with EVs for a while. But again, no doubt they are behind Nissan & GM in terms of EVs and PHEVs.
Thanks for sharing this article. It should be interesting to see what Honda announces/unveils on Tuesday. Remember those spy photos of Honda testing the Insight in the desert, alongside the Prius? Hopefully some images of Honda's next [attempt] will be discovered sooner rather than later.
They refocused and seem to be on the right track now. I am surprised at the speed of these new products are coming out. Lithium-ion Civic hybrid in 2011 and plugin hybrid in 2012.
I'm sure Honda has kept developing products behind the scenes, whatever they say publicly! The problem is that they are still years behind Toyota in implementing the technology, so don't expect miracles in anything they release in the next few years!
This is not accurate IMO. It's your opinion and that's fine. Honda is definitely playing catch up as is VW. Toyota is completely different. Fact is that neither Nissan nor GM have their respective plugins on the road in the hands of the public generating real world results like Toyota has with the PHV ( Tony's blog herein ). As noted in the prior post, sandbag, sandbag, sandbag, BLAM, it's enroute and actually on the road. Honda will forever be able to state that it had the first mass-produced hybrid on the roads [ in NA ] because it beat the Prius by 6 months. Now Toyota can forever state that it had its PHV on the roads before either the Leaf or the Volt.
There are several ways to get "real world results" - including asking employees to drive it daily. I'd say Toyota is ahead if they came to maket first. If they have to ask a EV startup to make a prototype for them, then they are behind. BTW, I've been wondering about this sudden interest in all auto majors to have EVs on the road in 2012. May be this has something to do with it. Honda CEO Ito Eases Skepticism, Joins Push for Electric Cars, Plug-Ins - Bloomberg
Actually VW/Audi were the first to have PHEVs available to the buying public. Back in 1997 the Audi Duo was a series production PHEV with a 1.9 TDi engine and a 21 kW electric motor. It was for sale here in Europe and had a dashboard button for EV only mode too. Sadly it didn't sell well at all so it was quickly discontinued. VW have also had electric-only EV versions of the Golf for sale in the home market (Germany) since the 1970s, as "CityStromer" versions of the Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 Golfs. They were lead-acid based and had about 50 miles range.
