...and so does Insight

HONDA

Honda hopes that a sizeable chunk of its 25 million customers worldwide - which combine for its three market pillars of power products, cars and bikes - will achieve a significant reduction of CO2 emissions through electromotive technology such as hybrids, fuel-cell vehicles and battery-electric vehicles.

In layman's terms, the world's melting ice caps will force you to live somewhere else on high ground, say Khao Yai, unless the world stops spewing out CO2, preferably at a dramatic rate.

According to the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA), there are over 700 million vehicles on the streets with more than 60% of the world's automobiles owned by advanced nations. Asean and India account for a combined 45 million cars, while North America alone has 270 million cars.

Honda claims that by 2050 the vehicle population will triple to over 2.1 billion cars, while CO2 rates will be cut down by 50% thanks to electromotive technology and legislation.

It's a hard pill to swallow but not too many are confident that automakers, and consumers alike, can actually halve CO2 levels as car population is tripled in the next four decades.

Ever since the seeds of the hybrid brouhaha were planted, the issue of whether the manufacturing origins and production process of hybrid vehicles are CO2-free or not wasn't really clear to the writer, but we must give automakers a chance to prove ... redeem themselves, rather.

Honda believes that hybrid technology is the way to go as seen in sales of 93,500 units of its Insight hybrid vehicle.

Honda's new hybrid proposal, the CR-Z Concept 2009 and its six-speed manual transmission mated to a 1.5-litre i-VTEC engine is what I liken to an exciting reincarnation of the sporty CRX hatchback lineup of the late '80s.

Michio Shinohara of Honda Motor's Environment & Safety Planning Office said that as per capita income increases, people select transportation that allows them to travel faster and longer (distance) which is why the three critical issues come in to play: energy sustainability (alternative fuels), climate change (hybrids) and air quality.

Shinohara said that Honda's vision for reducing CO2 will comprise shifting to electromotive technology as the best alternative: hybrids (intensive promotive with affordable pricing, better performance by maximising internal combustion engine and hybridisation), fuel-cell vehicles (cost reduction and infrastructure of hydrogen supply stations, better awareness) and battery-electric vehicles (better driving range, cost reduction and electric power source infrastructure).

Honda president and CEO Takanobu Ito commented on electromotive technology:

"These technologies [electric vehicles] will become mainstream in the next 20-30 years. Currently we need to reduce CO2 along the way and the hybrid is the way... the reality is that we must enhance combustion as much as possible by introducing fuel-injection engines in motorcycles or even the Ecocar project, a vision of the Thai government which Honda was one of the first companies to support this project. Its [Ecocar] criteria is perfect [fuel efficient, reasonably priced] and we are developing it and preparing to sell it."

Ito added that Honda has plans to bring the hybrid to Thailand.

"We are still studying which model is suitable, but the trend is hybrid. Its high cost and performance requires a good balance. Hybrids work in Japan because the Japanese government gives incentives to make it cheaper."

Technology supposedly saved the world from the aftermath of the waste and pollution brought upon by the Industrial Revolution and the steam engine. There's probably some truth to it.

On the same lines in the '50s, Honda data shows that the automobile was spewing out 11 (7-mode) grammes per mile of exhaust as it gradually reduced to the following: 3.4 grammes per mile in 1972, 1.5 (1975), Tier 0 or 0.41 (1980), Tier 1 or 0.25 (1993), Euro 4 or 0.16 (2005), and SULEV or 0.01 in 2007 - all thanks to technology.

In a span of 30 years vehicle emission standards was reduced to 1/1000; not all cars meet SULEV emission standards.

It would benefit Asean denizens if our leaders take a more serious stance on issues like electromotive technology. But understandably other matters are also important... like holding hands to show Asean unity.

And the last time Motoring checked, local excise and import tax rates slapped the Honda Civic Hybrid with a B2m price tag.

Yet it's imperative that automakers like Honda heed the call to reduce CO2 - with the fuel-cell vehicle - as consumers and manufacturers drive the point home on the fact that this air we breathe, the environment we share is being borrowed from our children.

Relate Search: Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Khao Yai