Oct

Were the 90s a “decade of poor decisions” for Honda?

Posted by admin Published in MPG, Acura, Honda

Here’s a short, interesting opinion piece by Matt Timion, owner and operator of GasSavers.org. He first acknowledges that since Honda’s entry into the U.S. automotive market in 1971, the automaker has been “more concerned with fuel economy and emissions than any other manufacturer.” As partial evidence, he points to Honda’s continual offering of at least one super mileage vehicle starting with their CVCC technology moving on to the CRX HF, the Civic VX and the Insight.

Matt’s argument gets interesting when he attributes an attitude shift at Honda towards bigger profits with company founder Soichiro Honda’s death in 1991. He says that at the date “an observable change in Honda’s commerce model and priorities surfaced.”

I do think that there’s some truth to what Matt’s saying as the ’90s brought Honda’s foray into SUVs and minivans, however, I wouldn’t shout it “a decade of naughty decisions” like Matt. In Popular Science’s interview, Honda’s CEO Takeo Fukui stresses that as a global company they need to cater to the desires of the consumer. He says, “Americans love big cars, and they will want them whenever possible. Honda will, of course, give them what they want, but our cars will always be the most fuel-efficient in

their respective classes.” The ’90s for Honda were really about expanding their model line-up beyond the Civic, Accord and Prelude as well as moving the Acura make past the Integra and Legend. that lead the company to abandon its capital-draining Formula 1 presence starting in 1993 and continuing through the 1999 season (only supplying engines through Mugen in the interim). And don’t forget the NSX was Soichiro Honda’s final great project.

Soichiro Honda was a brilliant man who believed in extracting the most he could possibly derive from any capability plant, and that means efficiency as well as performance. The substance of that response is not to take anything absent from Honda’s spectacular track record in low emissions and high mileage, but simply to underline the fact that we should not mix up causes and effects as we struggle in finding widely accepted incentives for reducing emissions and developing alternative fuels for the future.

In any case, Matt, we think you’re doing some great work with your website and wish you the best.

[Source: American Chronicle]

Original post by Derrick Y. Noh