Honda’s New Diesel Initiative To Spark Death Rattle For Accord Hybrid

Gogo, I enjoy your intelligent sarcasm and funny posts, and you seem to know your design stuff, but I think you're overdoing it with your Toyota bashing.

I know that most of the Toyota fanboys on this site are blind and clueless and just complete morons (like Will), but come on, don't overdo it. Don't sink to their level of stupidity.

Yeah, it's such a scam to produce vehicles that have a supplemental energy supply yielding more power, better mpg and cleaner emissions. I guess I'll just pay a $10000 premium for leather, chrome wheels, Nav, spoiler, ground effects, carbon fober trim, Bose audio and dual tip chrom exhaust, the things that really matter.

All the motor comps need to partner up to make an engine, that has 0 emmitions, that uses no type of fossle fules, no recharging, and 10-20% more powerfull.

Bill your an idiot

I'm an idiot? WHY?

I wasn't privelidged enough to have a nanny, Wilco. Not everyone grows up with a golden spoon in their mouth.

An updated Ridgeline with a diesel would be very nice.

But what the hell is with the anti-hybrid folks here? If you don't like them, think they're a scam, etc. then just don't buy one.

Sounds like some here are grabbing pitchforks and marching up to kill Frankenstein's monster the way they speak of hybrids.

By the way, the sole reason why Honda is not furthering hybrid Accord efforts is because the Accord hybrid was a very, very slow seller.

Honda just didnt get it with the Accord. There is a market for hybrids that combine performance with mpg, the Highlander and RX400h continue to sell well. Honda just didnt have enough mpg or performance to make it worth the cost.

The hybrid is the fastest Accord ever. The typical Honda customer may simply value Total Cost of Ownership more than the typical Toyota customer.

At current gas prices the Hybrid still is a stretch to break even over initial cost for the typical owner. Toyota customers may be motivated more by a higher calling.

The Accord Hybrid was never a good seller for them. It surprises me that the Camry Hybrid has sold so much better- or that Toyota sought to produce at all, after Honda's failure with the concept.

Then again, the Accord was more about performance, and less about mileage. I don't think it got as many miles per gallon as a non-V6 Accord LX.

The mileage was better, but barely better the 4 cylinder. Pay several thousands more for very little mileage gain.

you get batter mileage, performance and added features with the Camry hybrid, at not much more of a premium. this is a business model that works. Offer more in many areas, for a smaller increase in price. Unlike the Accord, which couldnt deliver enough of an increase in any of those areas to offset its price premium.

You're not still pushing that one rumour from England about a VW gas-hybrid are you? Notice that no "real" news source or VW agency has ever mentioned gas-hybrids, other than to deride them as a stupid idea that adds costs and environmental damage (using rare and toxic metals) to achieve performance that doesn't even match a 10 year old Diesel (the VW Passat TDI came out in '96, and Audi had the engines before that).

Give up on it. The world's largest producer of diesel engines is not going to build a gas hybrid.

Honda's IMA was simple, cheaper, and efficient, but not quite as advanced as the Toyota HSD. That's not why it failed, it was all about the marketing...

You have to remember that the accord hybrid is a "muscle" hybrid with better acceleration than even the V6 coupe, while returning similar mpg figures as the 4 banger. But unlike the lexus muscle hybrids, it can't command a high price tag, due to it's lowly badge of a common non-performance family sedan. That "performance " hybrid sys won't appeal to the average hybrid buyer, who whats the mpg bragging rights or to look like an environmentalist with oddball prius styling. That sys should have been implemented in a luxury perfomance Acura sedan or something...

What he's saying is that people with the cash for a Lexus (and a need to support their ego with badges) will buy a car that says "Lexus" and "Hybrid", even though they don't know what they're buying or why or what the alternatives are.

People who are shopping on an Accord budget typically won't have the extra cash to burn for the status of having a hybrid, or they're smart enough to know that it doesn't make economic sense to pay the premium and face a huge drop in value in 4 years when those expensive toxic batteries are nearing the end of their life!

They're looking into it so they can grab a portion of the market from Toyota.

Their real focus is on diesel technology.

Anyway, when Honda does succeed with its new diesel, that'll be the new benchmark that no European diesel can touch.



Um... the Europeans lead the diesel field in case you didn't know. The Honda 2.2 diesel in Europe is good (far better than anything Toyota offers), but it's not on par with the European diesels.

Please stop spewing your senseless bias around.

More diesels is better. And huu76, the VW 4 cylinder Jetta will not need any liquid refull like the Honda diesel which wnon't be any cleaner.

Come on huu76, don't be lame, a special event for fuel economy is completely different than real world fuel economy. Subtract 30 from your number and don't be silly.

Why are "more diesels better" ????
Because more diesels mean less crude oil used, and less pollution!

VW has cars getting > 80 MPG on "normal driving" for years.
Here's a link to Popular Mechanics ... its not a European magazine, so maybe you'll believe it ;)
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/how_to/3374271.html

It also notes people getting 100MPG with the Prius by adding solar panels. Very clever. If you drive short distances, treat it as a pure electric car. I love it. Get rid of the gas engine, and you'll go even further on a charge with the reduced weight!

holy jesus I want a Accord i-CTDi it gets 92 mpg!

Yes but that was fake record attempt driving. Go to the Honda website, and see what milage it is rated at. Not even bliping close to 92. In fact,I will do it for you. It gets 52.3 mpg combined in Imperial gallons which is 20% larger than an American gallon. The VW Jetta (same basic size as the European Honda Accord which is sold here as the Acura TSX) with the old PD (not the new common rail) engine makes the same power (2 more hp actually) and gets 50.4 mpg per Imperial gallon combined, so there is basically no difference. And that is the old VW diesel. So please stop pretending that the Honda diesel is hella better because it is not. How do you like your ownage served, buddy?

http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/new_cars/jetta/engines#

http://www.honda.co.uk/car/

THE DIRTY SECRET ABOUT GASOLINE CONSUMPTION.
One of the reasons many people rag on gas hybrids, is that gasoline is a poor use of crude oil. And I'm not talking about diesel's greater MPG in your car.

Step back and look at the BIG PICTURE for a second.
Alaskan crude can be pumped directly into a diesel truck and it burns it ... you can find many references to this ... trucks in the oil-fields never run out of fuel.
But you can't pump it into a gasoline car.

So how do they break the long-chain hydro-carbons in crude down into the short-chain hydro-carbons called gasoline? By heating it in a facility called a refinery (in the "cracking tower"). Where does the heat come from? From burning crude oil ... fuel that could have been used to power diesel vehicles.

So, by the time your tank of gasoline gets to the pumps, you have already burned gallons of crude to process it!
(that's why its criminal to charge more for diesel than for gasoline)
If you ever factor in that additional fuel consumption, then even a Prius is a resource-wasting car. And a normal (non-hybrid) gas-powered car is much worse.

And THAT is why hybrid-diesel is the way to go for city cars (taxis, stop-and-go commuters) and pure diesel for highway cars. (sounds like Honda's plan exactly)

NOTE: Please back up your flaming comments with something that is scientifically supportable.

I said it was fake as in the driving they did was not even close to normal driving. As you see the Honda diesel and the old VW diesel get just about the same fuel economy.

You know the Audi Q7 V12 TDI (with the latest TDI technology) has 200% more displacement, 215% more power than the Audi Q7 V6 TDI, BUT only uses 13% more fuel. Amazing isn't it. The new TDI technology is super good. And look at the long post above as well.

Ok, huu76 chew on this. This aren't my words but they make lots of sense.

According to at least one source ( http://www.greendieseltechnolo...&link= ), diesel vehicles with DPFs emit about 0.3 mg/mile PM (i.e., even less than gasoline vehicles). If ALL light-duty vehicles were these DPF-equipped diesels, the annual U.S. national emission inventory from this source category (light-duty vehicles) would be about 1,000 tons. For reference, in 2002, the NEI from this source category was about 27,000 tons.

Even though vehicles certified as "AT-PZEV" clearly have extremely low vehicle-out emissions, they still require gasoline as a fuel (no diesel HEVs available yet). Gasoline is a VERY volatile substance. The EPA recently issued a notice of proposed rulemaking ( http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/ad...ument ) to reduce VOC emissions from the distribution of gasoline. According to the Federal Register notice (FR, November 9, 2006, page 66077), this gasoline distribution process releases annually 475,000 tons of VOCs and 35,500 tons of hazardous air pollutants, including 1300 tons of benzene (a known carcinogen) just from this process. The proposed action would reduce gasoline vapors (VOC) down to about 428,800 tons. Of course, diesel fuel has essentially no emissions of VOC during this process.

Even if you assume that a hypothetical 100% fleet of AT-PZEV hybrid vehicles would more that double the average fuel economy, that's still about 200K tons of gasoline vapor VOC emitted per year. Gasoline vapor is especially bad because not only is it highly reactive in the ozone (smog) production process (i.e., it rapidly contributes to high ozone levels), it eventually decomposes into formaldehyde (another carcinogen) and secondary organic aerosols (i.e., fine particulate matter). The SOA production from ~200K tons of gas vapor would be over 8000 tons. So that's 8 times the PM emitted from an entire LDV fleet of diesels (not even taking the directly emitted PM into account).

Again, in my opinion, a lot more information needs to be taken into account other than a cursory review of EPA's green vehicle guide to make any legitimate judgment about the environmental impacts of a specific vehicle line.

The links:

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/7c02ca8c86062a0f85257018004118a6/459912df91735b2f8525721a004c9771!OpenDocument

http://www.greendieseltechnology.com/News.asp?ID=418&link

What about that huu76.

ULSD has 15 Parts Per Million of Sulphur so I don't think that is a problem anymore. The stuff in the middle says that diesel has zero of vapor emmisions, but gasoline will always have a lot, even if it is lowered.