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2010 Honda Insight Official Photos and Info - Car News

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Honda all-new hybrid takes direct aim at the Toyota Prius.

Honda was the first automaker to put a hybrid on the road with the original Insight in December 1999 and it wants to reclaim its place at the big kids table with the resurrection of the name on an all-new hybrid.

The automaker provides this first official look at the five-door hatch that will be formally unveiled in October at the 2008 Paris auto show. It will technically be a concept, but appears more than production-ready.

The Insight rides on an all-new platform as a bespoke hybrid, as opposed to offering a hybrid version of an existing vehicle as is the case with the current Honda Civic hybrid and the Honda Fit hybrid planned by 2015.

The Insight will be smaller than a Civic and CEO Takeo Fukui says it will be priced significantly below current hybrids. We expect it to start about $19,000, in keeping with the automakers goal of pricing it competitively against conventional small vehicles in its segment. This new Insight will break new ground as an affordable hybrid within the reach of customers who want great fuel economy and great value,â€ Fukui says in a statement.

The on-sale date for the Insight is April 22”Earth Day”and the automaker is projecting global annual sales of 200,000, half of which are for the North American market. But Honda is known for erring on the conservative side, and given that it will go head-to-head with the Toyota Prius, which has sold almost 120,000 in the first eight months of this year in the U.S. alone, we would not be surprised to see Honda exceed these modest forecasts.

In looks, the new hatch bears a familial resemblance to Honda's other poster car for alternative fuels”the FCX Clarity fuel-cell vehicle, but the Insight also shares an aerodynamically raked front, stubby tail, and an overall profile with the Prius. Both offer five-passenger seating and plenty of cargo space inside a relatively small body. The Insightâ€™s folding rear seats further accentuate the cargo hold.

In terms of propulsion, the Insight gets a smaller, lighter”and less-expensive”version of Honda's Integrated Motor Assist hybrid system that is in the Civic. The smaller pack of nickel-metal-hydride batteries is stored under the trunk floor. Honda says lithium-ion batteries aren't yet a viable option.

Honda officials in the U.K. have been quoted as saying the new hybrid will achieve 60 mpg, but that is on the higher-yield Euro cycle.

The Insight will be built on a new assembly line at Honda's Suzuka, Japan, plant, which currently builds the Civic hybrid. It is the first of a hybrid onslaught that also calls for production of the CR-Z hybrid sports car concept shown at the 2007 Tokyo auto show, a new Honda Civic hybrid, and the addition of the Fit hybrid”all by 2015, at which point the automaker's goal is to be selling half a million hybrids per year globally.

Toyota will sell its next-generation Prius as a 2010 model, also with nickel-metal-hydride batteries. The successor is expected to be larger then the current model. Lexus likely will show a new hybrid, as well, at the Detroit auto show next January.

Honda used to have an Accord hybrid in its lineup, but it was dropped at the end of the 2007 model year due to slow sales, attributed partly to the fact that the hybrid didn't look much different than a regular Accord. The other problem was the hybrid wasn't much more fuel-efficient than a conventional Accord with a four-cylinder, making it hard to justify an extra $6000 for the electric motor.

2009 Honda Fit - Auto Shows

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If this redesign of the Honda Fit seems to be coming a little early, that’s because it is. So early, in fact, that we've just recently sent back our long-term Fit. But, although the sub-Civic Fit only debuted in the U.S. two years ago at New York auto show, the car has been on sale in Japan since 2001, so its time has come for a redesign.

The redesign involves taking a winning formula and making it better. The car is bigger in almost every dimension—width, length, and wheelbase all increase by a few inches. Overall weight increases by fewer than 30 pounds. Wheels on base Fits are 15 inches, with 16s as an option.

The new, larger Fit is still a tiny car, but overall interior volume should be approaching that of a Honda Civic. Honda has improved upon the Fit's already good seat-folding mechanisms, making it even easier to access the versatile cargo space, as well as adding telescoping adjustability to the steering column. A smaller A-pillar is designed to increase visibility, and new options for the '09 Fit include navigation, stability control, and a panoramic roof to let in more light.

Under the hood, the 2009 Fit continues to use a 1.5-liter i-VTEC four-cylinder engine. Power output is 120 horsepower and 107 pound-feet of torque, an increase of 11 ponies and two pound-feet. A five-speed manual will be the standard transmission, with a paddle-shifted five-speed automatic optional.

Globally, the Fit accounts for about 10 percent of all Honda sales, and that success is sure to continue with the updated version. Watch for the 2009 Honda Fit to appear in showrooms this fall.

Honda, Nissan join to mass produce fiber-body cars

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Japanese auto giants Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. have joined with Toray Industries Inc. to develop a new carbon-fiber material for use in auto bodies, aiming to mass produce cars that are lighter by as much as 40% than steel-built vehicles, according to a report Thursday.

The group aims to establish mass production technology for the new material by the middle of the next decade, the Nikkei business daily reported, without citing a source.
Honda ,Nissan and Toray will be joined in their efforts by textile firms Mitsubishi Rayon Co. and Toyoba Co. , plastic parts maker Takagi Seiko Corp. and researchers from the University of Tokyo, the Nikkei report added.
The joint efforts come during steep increases in iron ore prices recently, which have in turn inflated steel prices and raw material costs for automakers across the world.
Although carbon fiber now is several times more expensive than steel or aluminum, the price gap is expected to narrow because there is significant room for increasing production of the new material, according to the report.
If successful, the efforts will help produce lighter vehicles than can also improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.

Successful mass production would also be a big leap in the evolution of the automotive industry, as although it is tough and light, carbon fiber’s high costs currently limit its usage to concept cars and a select few high-end sports vehicles.

Honda OSM lightweight and low emission sport car concept

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Honda’s low-emission sportscar study model has been revealed at the British International Motor Show, at ExCeL, London.

The lightweight roadster design study displays one of Honda’s core engineering principles – to design stylish and exciting cars that are also environmentally responsible.

Named the OSM (for Open Study Model), the two-seater joins the confirmed-for-production CR-Z sports hybrid and FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car on the Honda stand at the show.

“We’re trying to show that low emission cars can be attractive,” says Andreas Sittel, Project Leader for OSM. “There is no reason why a car that’s more environmentally friendly can’t look great too – and be sporty and fun to drive.”

The concept for the project was ‘Clean and Dynamic’ – and this direction was followed for both the exterior and interior design, ensuring a joined-up, consistent ‘language’ between the two. One example of this can be seen at the rear of the car, where the body actually extends into the cabin between the seats.

The exterior design is a balance of smooth, rounded curves and sharp lines to provide definition in key areas. The headlights are cleverly integrated into the front end, stretching from the nose to the top of the wheel arches to look more like a part of the original body.

Inside, this uninterrupted, fluid approach is continued, with long sweeping curves extending from both door panels to form a frame for the instrument display. The concept for the dashboard was to avoid creating the traditional block of ‘heavy’ colour and material in front of the driver; in keeping with the clean and lightweight theme. For that reason, the dash is broken into sections, with the most important instruments in direct line-of-sight of the driver.

Key information is displayed in a rounded, enclosed central binnacle, with levels and figures in bright blue on a black background. This matches the trim inside the car, with the seats and door furniture trimmed in a new, gloss-effect blue leather, accompanied by white leather sections, in line with the exterior body colour, a one-off paint called Mystic Pearl.

The driver’s main controls and functions are distributed in an intuitive layout, close at hand on a panel that curves downwards to the right of the driver. A centrally-mounted semi-sequential gear-shift points towards a fun-to-drive transmission, along with paddle shifts either side of the steering wheel. Integrated into the gearshifter itself is a red ignition ‘start’ button, which reinforces the sporty direction of the car.

The Honda OSM was designed by Honda’s R&D facility in Offenbach, Germany. It’s the latest example of the young talent being developed within Honda’s design studios in Europe – following the Honda Small Hybrid Sports Concept (Geneva 2007) and the Accord Tourer Concept (Frankfurt 2007).

At present, the Honda OSM is a design study model, and there are no plans for it to enter production.