The Japanese auto giant, Honda Motors has finally officially announced of its entry into the diesel engine segment with its 1.6 litre cubic capacity engine. Honda will be showcasing its 1.6 litre turbo charged diesel engine at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show and will be first debuting in its Honda Civic. The 1.6 litre diesel engine is the first of a series of such engines to be brought to the Indian market under its technology banner “Earth Dreams”.

At the Geneva Motor Show, Honda will be showcasing the Civic fitted with the 1.6 litre diesel engine and also demonstrate a cut-away section of the same engine at the venue. They are also likely to be joined by the CR-V replacement which is expected to be launched here. The 1.6 litre turbocharged engine produces 118 BHP of peak power at 4000 RPM and 300 Nm of peak torque at 2000 RPM. The power and torque figures look healthy and Honda claims that it is the lightest engine in its class with a class leading minimal CO2 emission of less than 100 g/km.

Honda will also be debuting the NSX concept at the Geneva Motor Show along with a facelfted version of the Jazz and Jazz Si for the European markets. With the Indian auto market dynamics showing a strong shift towards diesel engines, Honda is very likely to bring in the 1.6 litre engine to the Indian market very soon to take advantage of the market demand.

The Japanese auto manufacturer, Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) plans to resume its production operations by the month of March after facing severe supply disruption of components from its vendors due to the tsunami in Japan and the floods in Thailand. If all goes as planned now, Honda will have faced 6 months of production crunch in the current fiscal year. Currently the company has already started to roll out the City sedan from this month while will be resuming its normal operations for Brio and Jazz from March. Honda has rolled out 1000 models of the City this month.

“In this ongoing fiscal we have lost about six months of production due to disruption in supply of components following the tsunami in Japan and floods in Thailand. Now we have found alternate source from Japan and China,” Honda Siel Cars India Senior Vice-President (Marketing & Sales) Jsnaneswar Sen told

Honda currently has one manufacturing facility in India in Greater Noida which has an annual capacity of 1.2 lakh units while the company is deliberating on setting up another such facility in the future in Tapukara in Rajasthan. However, Mr. Sen added that the decision to start rolling out cars from its second plant will be taken only when the Greater Noida plant runs at full capacity. Honda had cut its overall production at the Greater Noida plant in May to more than 50% following the aftermath of the tsunami of Japan and huge floods in Thailand.

Honda is gearing up to restore its supply and reduce the waiting period of its vehicles. It also rejected any plans of introducing any new model in the Indian market this year. The Brio has got about 8000 pending bookings till date of which only 2000 units have been delivered. Mr. Sen is very positive of the production touching the 10,000 units per month by March-April. The production of the Brio will be ramped up by next month which will be followed by the Jazz. In these competitive times, Honda has lost a lot of market and needs to gear up aggressively to make up for it.

Honda was stuck with massive constraints of production due to lack of supply of components from its vendors who were affected by the Thailand floods, hopes to get back to full production by March. The company has managed to secure alternate sources for the components, mainly electronic and underbody parts whose supplies got disrupted. Now, these parts will be shipped by the company from Japan and China. The Japanese automaker has already resumed City production and are aiming to get the production of the Brio and Jazz up and running by next month to prevent waiting periods and delay to customers. Honda aims to resume its production output to 9000 to 10,000 units per month by March, 2012.

“Now that we have secured alternative sources of supplies, we hope deliver as many cars as possible to our waiting City, Jazz and Brio customers,” Jnaneswar Sen, senior VP, sales and marketing, Honda India, said.

Honda is also set to take a decision on setting up a production line at its second plant in Tapukara near Rajasthan. But, Mr. Sen also added that this decision will be taken only when the current plant reaches its full production capacity. The company aims to completely utilize the capacity of the existing plant of 1 lakh units by 2012. He also added that the company will be increasing its efforts in localization of parts to make itself immune from such natural calamities in future and global currency fluctuations. Honda’s sales volumes declined by 3.8% in the year 2010-11 to just 59,463 units. Currently, the company has bookings of 7500 Brios, 4000 Jazzs and 2000 Citys. The Brio and the new City are now facing waiting periods of 4 to 8 weeks while that of Jazz is about 3 to 6 months. The company’s main focus is on clearing the bookings as quickly as possible and giving a re-birth to the Brio. The Brio is Honda’s take on the small car hatchback segment. While the car received quite reviews, sales never picked up high due to unfortunate incidents involving the Tsunami in Japan and floods in Bangkok.

We were expecting to see the new CRV and the 2012 Honda Civic (already driven) at the Auto Expo at the Honda pavilion but unfortunately the floods in Thailand have created havoc in the Japanese giants Asia operations. Thousands of flood affected cars have been scrapped in Thailand and the company has suffered huge losses. Disruption in the supply chain has affected the new Honda Brio which could hardly tick the counter last month. Nevertheless, Honda showcased the Indian lineup at the Auto Expo consisting of the Accord, Civic, Brio and the all new Honda City, which was only launched last month.

Inspite of only having  the petrol motor to drive their cars, Honda has done remarkably well with the City still doing good numbers in a diesel driven market. Having unveiled the all new 1.6-liter iDTEC diesel motor at a motor show lately, Honda will churn out diesel engines in India by 2013, and we are sure the Japanese manufacturer will bounce back in a big way.

The Nissan Qashqai has been one of the most favourite models in Europe, so much favourite that OEMs like Honda are getting outright jealous of the model’s success. Mr. Takanobu Ito, CEO of Honda Motor Company commented directly that the company is very envious of the Qashqai’s success and they are also planning to develop something similar to that. He however, refrained from revealing any timeline for the launch of the Honda’s Qashqai rival. This rival will be a compact SUV, which could very well make its way to India, positioned against the Renault Duster and the Ford EcoSport. The Nissan Qashqai is so popular among the European customers that it alone outsold the entire Honda line-up in western Europe. Due to the strong sales, Nissan’s volume grew by 16% to give it a market share of 3.4% while that of Honda was 1.1%.

In order to gain some market share, Honda is already lining up its new facelifted Civic that is due to debut next year and the new CR-V compact SUV. The company will also be launching its newly developed 1.6 litre diesel engine that produces 120 BHP of power. The company claims it is the lightest diesel engine in its class with an emission figure of less than 100 grams per kilometre. The engine alone weighs just 180 kgs and will be manufactured at the company’s production facility in Swindon, England. The Nissan Qashqai is a 5 door 2 wheel drive compact SUV powered by a 1.6 litre 16 valve petrol engine. It does a 0 to 100 kmph in about 11.9 seconds and has a fuel efficiency figure of 6.2 litre per 100 km (company claimed).

The auto markets especially in India and Europe are turning to diesels as the petrol prices soar higher and higher. This has made the Japanese companies like Honda and Suzuki work much harder to get sales volumes in the market since they are not equipped with the diesel engine technology. However, a company like Honda is not going to let things run this way. Honda has finally come up with its first diesel engine which will be making its debut in the 2013 Honda Civic, the ninth generation since it was launched. The car with the diesel powertrain will be showcased at the Paris Motor Show in 2012. The company will be launching the car in Europe by the month of February 2012.

Honda engineer Junji Yamano commented that the company has spent sleepless nights trying to develop a diesel engine that will match up with the diesels of Volkswagen and thus he expects it will be good if VW has some sleepless nights. The diesel engine developed by Honda is a 1.6 litre engine that produces 300 Nm of torque and 120 BHP of power with a CO2 emission less than 100g/km. The engine weighs just 180 kgs and Honda claims that it is the lightest in its class. In addition to developing a diesel, Honda has also developed 1 new CVT for its Accord and 2 CVTs for its Civiv, Jazz and Japan mini cars. The company will continue to offer the manual transmissions and might be offering a 7 speed dual clutch transmission and an automatic gearbox with 8 or 9 speeds.

Source – AutoNews

Honda announced the 1.6-liter iDTEC diesel engine for the Civic just yesterday and now the company has divulged details on the diesel engines which will power smaller Honda cars in many markets. The Japanese automaker is developing an all new 1.4-liter iDTEC diesel engine which would debut in India in 2013. This compact diesel will power the Jazz, Brio and City and is being developed by ex-F1 engineers. With diesel being the fuel of choice in India, the arrival of the 1.4-liter iDTEC powerplant will play a vital role in increasing Honda’s market share in the country.

Honda underestimated the growing demand of diesel-powered cars and was too late to react. However the company now plans to go all out on a diesel attack with the launch of diesel-powered Brio, Jazz, City, Civic, Accord and CR-V. The 1.4-liter diesel motor which is being developed specially for India should produce around 90 HP of power and 200 Nm of torque. It will be highly fuel efficient and will help Honda qualify the Brio and Jazz as small cars, leading to lesser excise duties and a more aggressive price. We believe that diesel-powered Honda’s could really be the power of dreams for many in India. Expect the diesel-powered cars to cost Rs. 80,000/- more than their petrol counterparts.

Honda has announced new engines at the ongoing Tokyo Motor Show. The Japanese automaker has called its next generation of engines as ‘Earth Dreams Technology’. Out of all the new engines announced, one engine is of particular interest to us. It is the 1.6-liter i-DTEC turbo diesel engine, which produces 120 PS of power at 4000 RPM and 300 Nm of torque at 2000 RPM. This 1596cc motor is the lightest diesel engine in its class, weighing just 170 kgs. It is mated to a 6-speed manual gearbox and will do duty in the Honda Civic at first. The company will later plonk this engine into the Jazz for the European markets. We can expect Honda to offer this engine in the new 2012 Civic, when they launch it in India by the end on 2012. The same engine can be detuned for use in the City as well, this will help Honda fight competition till a smaller sub-1.5-liter diesel engine makes its debut in 2013.

“We are aware of the petrol price increase in India but we consider that as a sign of growth in the Indian market, definitely we are currently developing diesel engine cars. Indian market is asking for more diesel engine cars and we are fully aware of that,” Yasuhisa Arai, Managing Officer and Chief Officer, Development Operations, Honda R&D said.

The 1.6-liter engine is essentially a downsized 2.2-liter diesel engine, which has extensive reduction of mechanical friction in each section. This gives the 1.6 unit similar friction levels as a petrol motor. What is so special about this i-DTEC engine is the high fuel efficiency it offers, which is perfectly suited for the Indian car market. Even the CO2 emissions are very low at below 100 g/km. With power being delivered lower down, we can expect this new diesel engine to offer extremely good driveability. Furthermore, if Honda does not detune this motor for the Indian market, the Civic’s diesel version will be one of the most powerful diesel engines in its segment.

The Japanese auto majors, Toyota and Honda have started to look for new alternative suppliers for its components after the recent floods in Thailand, which is a key component supplier in the Asian markets, have completely disrupted their operations in India. Toyota is estimated to be incurring a loss of about 800 to 1000 vehicles or 8 to 10% of the total output due to the disruption in supply. The parts meant for Philippines and Indonesia are being diverted to the Indian facility to keep up with the production to control the waiting period of Innova and the Fortuner customers in India. Similarly, Honda Siel has has suffered output losses of more than 60 to 70%. The company is in talks with Chinese and Japanese suppliers to restore production normalcy in India.

“Toyota Motor Asia Pacific has given India the top-most priority. It is helping us by sourcing and diverting components, meant for Indonesia and Japan, here to sustain our good growth. Through this arrangement we will have spare parts supply till the end of the month,” Sandeep Singh, deputy managing director, marketing, Toyota India, said.

Key engine components for the Fortuner and Innova are imported by Toyota from Thailand while Honda Siel imports electronic and under-body parts. Toyota has said that its supplies are secure till the end of November though the exact scenario will be known by this month end. For Honda the condition is much worse. The company has been forced to stop production of its City and Brio since the company has run out of key critical components for these models. The waiting period for Jazz and Brio has run into 3 to 6 months and the company has already stopped bookings for the Jazz. If such conditions persist, the company might be forced to stop bookings for the Brio as well. For the Innova and the Fortuner, the waiting period is 4 months and 4-6 months respectively. However, there has been no impact on its small car Liva and the sedan, Etios which forms more than 50% of the total sales volumes.

Honda has shut down production of the City and Brio in India, citing supply constraints from Thailand. The company has also cut down output of the Jazz and is looking at China and Japan to normalize supplies for production. December could be a bad month for Honda as far as sales go, since the company will produce only 5% of what it usually does. This 5% is being done to keep the plant running and the human resources engaged. Honda produces around 6000 units every month and the City and Brio account for a major chunk of the company’s sales in India. Bookings for the Jazz have been halted temporarily and customers of the Brio have been informed about the delay in delivery. The launch of the City facelift looks skeptical next month.

“We are looking at China and Japan very keenly. We hope to firm up things soon and return to normalcy in the coming months, though nothing can be confirmed as of now,” Jnaneswar Sen, senior vice-president, Honda India, said.