General Honda F1 Topic

[Revs84]

I fully agree with you ispano regarding the FCEV. In fact, Honda, together with Toyota and Hyundai, is renown as a pioneer in the development of FCEVs and bringing them to the market - albeit in a very restricted manner and specific markets only.

Honda have acknowledged though that the costs of developing fuel cells and hydrogen is still too restrictive and they had to position this as the next generation of propulsion following the EV era.

Which is kind of sad really, since I also believe that EVs will only serve as a stop gap. The battery technology, made mammoth advances in the last few years, and together with the fact that charging stations are easier to set up and more widely available, EV cars have automatically earned their position as the next generation cars.

With that said, unless automakers, and their suppliers, start, or are forced to start, investing heavily in sourcing energy from renewable sources, all of this is a marketing gimmick. Sure, cities will be 'cleaner', but what about the impact that is left elsewhere for the sourcing of materials and production of batteries and other parts?

And that's why I have huge respect for Honda. As of last year, they committed themselves to buy more renewable energy per year than any other car manufacturer - at least in the US. In fact, by 2021, the target they set is to be buying a total of over 1million Mwh per year.

[PlatinumZealot]

Petrol was a cheap and easy energy source for combustion and is on its last leg. Of course auto companies will prolong its use since so much investment went into manufacturing engines and governments and oil producers have relied on auto sales to keep the world economy moving. But as we saw when Covid lock downs first happened and no cars were on the road, air quality massively improved, the Himalayas were visible from places 100 miles away for the first time in decades. Humanity is getting their priorities straight and moving away from fossil fuel burning is one of them. If F1 turned to fuel cell tech, Honda would be interested without a doubt.

As you say this... I think about it. Humans are greedy. Greed rules all. Those at the top are faced with a dilemma. They want to reap the benefits of a burgeoning "green market" but they also see vast amounts of hydrocarbon stores still untapped. The greedy bastards they are, they want best of both worlds. Their engineers will be ordered to "make it green" because they will not leave a drop of oil under the crust if it is still highly profitable (See Aramco's sponsored research) - Petrol is still cheap. Because of this I am looking at both sides of the carbon coin to see how things develop - anything is possible at this point. Research programs are still ramping up on clean combustion, carbon capture and synthetic fuels

[Marti_EF3]

I'd love synthetic fuels with carbon neutral emissions or even more cleaner. Personally I hate electrical vehicles. I don't see any fun on it. No sound, heavy as hell, and also much less durable than a good engine with good manteinance. They say EV are green, but then you are forced to change car every 10 years (more or less), or changing batteries that at the moment are not fully recyclable and expensive. And this have a lot more impact on the planet, than a car being able to run 20 years or more without the need to change or repair anything. My Civic now have 31 years old, and all is working fine. The only part which failed was the alternator, and I was able to repair it.

Manufacturers are accelerating towards EV, because there is a potential huge market to win. And the "green business" is going to make a lot of money, and at the moment is not more green than a good efficient petrol engine from my point of view

[etusch]

I'd love synthetic fuels with carbon neutral emissions or even more cleaner. Personally I hate electrical vehicles. I don't see any fun on it. No sound, heavy as hell, and also much less durable than a good engine with good manteinance. They say EV are green, but then you are forced to change car every 10 years (more or less), or changing batteries that at the moment are not fully recyclable and expensive. And this have a lot more impact on the planet, than a car being able to run 20 years or more without the need to change or repair anything. My Civic now have 31 years old, and all is working fine. The only part which failed was the alternator, and I was able to repair it.

Manufacturers are accelerating towards EV, because there is a potential huge market to win. And the "green business" is going to make a lot of money, and at the moment is not more green than a good efficient petrol engine from my point of view

Everything has good and bad sides. But marketing pollute more than a vw. they only think to sell and only talks about good sides.

[Lock2nl]

No, Toyota is the arch nemesis of Honda. They copy Honda's ideas and throw everything at it to make it seem Toyota are the innovation leaders.

I do not visit Japan very often. Never really heard them speak about Toyota that way.. nd most of them were Nissan people
But I'm curious. Toyota is supposed to be copying Honda. I mean, how long ago did Toyota start with the hybrid concept, combined with CVT and an Atkinson engine? I only recently saw Honda had one..
What is Toyota copying from Honda on the engine side?

Honda actually debuted the Insight in the US before Toyota debuted the Prius by around 1 year or so. I don't know what happened exactly, but it seems like Toyota did a better job in marketing and advancing the Prius and became the go-to hybrid car eventually.

But Toyota was first in Japan: 1997. At that point the Insight was still in a prototype state..

[Lock2nl]

I'd love synthetic fuels with carbon neutral emissions or even more cleaner. Personally I hate electrical vehicles. I don't see any fun on it. No sound, heavy as hell, and also much less durable than a good engine with good manteinance. They say EV are green, but then you are forced to change car every 10 years (more or less), or changing batteries that at the moment are not fully recyclable and expensive. And this have a lot more impact on the planet, than a car being able to run 20 years or more without the need to change or repair anything. My Civic now have 31 years old, and all is working fine. The only part which failed was the alternator, and I was able to repair it.

Manufacturers are accelerating towards EV, because there is a potential huge market to win. And the "green business" is going to make a lot of money, and at the moment is not more green than a good efficient petrol engine from my point of view

I can show you some 15 year old Prius cars. All on their first run of batteries. And the batteries can be recycled. It isn't all that bad.

[Lock2nl]

I'd love synthetic fuels with carbon neutral emissions or even more cleaner. Personally I hate electrical vehicles. I don't see any fun on it. No sound, heavy as hell, and also much less durable than a good engine with good manteinance. They say EV are green, but then you are forced to change car every 10 years (more or less), or changing batteries that at the moment are not fully recyclable and expensive. And this have a lot more impact on the planet, than a car being able to run 20 years or more without the need to change or repair anything. My Civic now have 31 years old, and all is working fine. The only part which failed was the alternator, and I was able to repair it.

Manufacturers are accelerating towards EV, because there is a potential huge market to win. And the "green business" is going to make a lot of money, and at the moment is not more green than a good efficient petrol engine from my point of view

Everything has good and bad sides. But marketing pollute more than a vw. they only think to sell and only talks about good sides.

Now that you mention that name: VW brings the electric ID.4 for no less than just under €50k. Some people need to work multiple years to make that much money. In that sense, I understand the hybrid effort because it is cheaper and you can sell more of them. And volume (as size... ) matters if you want to scale down the CO2 production.

[Marti_EF3]

I'd love synthetic fuels with carbon neutral emissions or even more cleaner. Personally I hate electrical vehicles. I don't see any fun on it. No sound, heavy as hell, and also much less durable than a good engine with good manteinance. They say EV are green, but then you are forced to change car every 10 years (more or less), or changing batteries that at the moment are not fully recyclable and expensive. And this have a lot more impact on the planet, than a car being able to run 20 years or more without the need to change or repair anything. My Civic now have 31 years old, and all is working fine. The only part which failed was the alternator, and I was able to repair it.

Manufacturers are accelerating towards EV, because there is a potential huge market to win. And the "green business" is going to make a lot of money, and at the moment is not more green than a good efficient petrol engine from my point of view

I can show you some 15 year old Prius cars. All on their first run of batteries. And the batteries can be recycled. It isn't all that bad.

With the same eficiency and capacity? Also the Toyotas are autorecharging hybrids, and that seems to treat way better the batteries than recharging from the electrical network. I was talking about full EV which need them to be connected to a power source to be recharged. And that it's what hurts most to the batteries. Most manufacturers are granting the batteries about 8 years and 320k km of life, but loosing a bit of performance. And a good engine maintained well enough can do 3 times that (life and distance). The "secret" is how you take care of it. If you use crap oil, increase the distance between oil changes, and you don't respect cooling and warming cycles before start to run or stop...that will decrease engine life, but that's not the engine fault

[ispano6]

I do not visit Japan very often. Never really heard them speak about Toyota that way.. nd most of them were Nissan people
But I'm curious. Toyota is supposed to be copying Honda. I mean, how long ago did Toyota start with the hybrid concept, combined with CVT and an Atkinson engine? I only recently saw Honda had one..
What is Toyota copying from Honda on the engine side?

Honda actually debuted the Insight in the US before Toyota debuted the Prius by around 1 year or so. I don't know what happened exactly, but it seems like Toyota did a better job in marketing and advancing the Prius and became the go-to hybrid car eventually.

But Toyota was first in Japan: 1997. At that point the Insight was still in a prototype state..

Hybrids were around much earlier than the first Toyota Prius. Honda's Insight used different technology but achieved higher MPG than the Prius thanks to adopting Kammback style chopped teardrop aerodynamics. The Prius "copied" that idea. Toyota is a Goliath compared to Honda, and you could say they are "smarter" with more "book smart" people or what they call in Japan "yuutousei" or model student. Honda of yore could be considered the B+ student who excels in athletics or the occasional autistic savant with flashes of brilliance. My wife always jokes about driving behind "slowyotas" - they usually are boring drivers who are focused on doing something other than driving, like make-up Every once in a while I'll comment on a Toyota being "nice" and she questions my loyalty. The one area that Toyota tried to follow Honda and never succeeded is F1, so in Japan, motorsports fans have huge respect for Honda.

[Wouter]

Honda exit won’t affect Tsunoda’s F1 debut chances

10th October 2020, 7:21 | Written by Dieter Rencken and Hazel Southwell

Yuki Tsunoda’s chances of gaining a promotion to Formula 1 will not be affected by Honda’s decision to leave the sport, according to senior figures at the Japanese manufacturer and Red Bull.

The 20-year-old, who lies second in the Formula 2 championship, is due to test for AlphaTauri at the end of the year. As well as being a member of Red Bull’s Junior Team he is also backed by Honda.

But Honda’s announcement last week that they will withdraw from F1 after 2021 has cast doubt on Tsunoda’s future in the sport.

However speaking in yesterday’s FIA press conference at the Eifel Grand Prix, Honda F1 managing director Yamamoto said that Tsunoda’s F1 hopes were not connected to Honda supplying Red Bull with power units and that Honda would continue to support his promotion hopes where they could.

“Personally, I don’t think that our leaving has any impact there,” said Yamamoto. “Red Bull don’t just let anyone drive their cars. I think they’ll be strictly evaluating him strictly as a junior driver and also, it depends on his Formula 2 results as well but we’d like to back him up where we can.”

AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost said that the team’s existing driver line-up and Tsunoda would be evaluated on on-track performance alone, after the young driver test.

“Alpha Tauri has two fast drivers currently, in Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat and we will do the young driver test with Yuki Tsunoda.”

“This has nothing to do with the decision from Honda that they will not continue after ’21. The philosophy at Red Bull is always the performance.”

https://www.racefans.net/2020/10/10/hon ... -f1-debut/

[NL_Fer]

Any chance Honda is leaving F1 to compete WEC with a NSX Hypercar?

[tangodjango]

This article mentions that Honda's annual budget is almost 400 Million $. I find that hard to believe. Ispano can you chime in with whether this figure is way off the mark or close to reality?

"Honda is believed to have been spending in excess of £300m a year on its F1 programme, despite finding limited avenues to transfer that technology to its automotive projects."

https://the-race.com/formula-1/what-fer ... s-f1-exit/

[Lock2nl]

I'd love synthetic fuels with carbon neutral emissions or even more cleaner. Personally I hate electrical vehicles. I don't see any fun on it. No sound, heavy as hell, and also much less durable than a good engine with good manteinance. They say EV are green, but then you are forced to change car every 10 years (more or less), or changing batteries that at the moment are not fully recyclable and expensive. And this have a lot more impact on the planet, than a car being able to run 20 years or more without the need to change or repair anything. My Civic now have 31 years old, and all is working fine. The only part which failed was the alternator, and I was able to repair it.

Manufacturers are accelerating towards EV, because there is a potential huge market to win. And the "green business" is going to make a lot of money, and at the moment is not more green than a good efficient petrol engine from my point of view

I can show you some 15 year old Prius cars. All on their first run of batteries. And the batteries can be recycled. It isn't all that bad.

With the same eficiency and capacity? Also the Toyotas are autorecharging hybrids, and that seems to treat way better the batteries than recharging from the electrical network. I was talking about full EV which need them to be connected to a power source to be recharged. And that it's what hurts most to the batteries. Most manufacturers are granting the batteries about 8 years and 320k km of life, but loosing a bit of performance. And a good engine maintained well enough can do 3 times that (life and distance). The "secret" is how you take care of it. If you use crap oil, increase the distance between oil changes, and you don't respect cooling and warming cycles before start to run or stop...that will decrease engine life, but that's not the engine fault

Ahh.. misread that one. Full EV is indeed something different. You are probably right here.

[Lock2nl]

Honda actually debuted the Insight in the US before Toyota debuted the Prius by around 1 year or so. I don't know what happened exactly, but it seems like Toyota did a better job in marketing and advancing the Prius and became the go-to hybrid car eventually.

But Toyota was first in Japan: 1997. At that point the Insight was still in a prototype state..

Hybrids were around much earlier than the first Toyota Prius. Honda's Insight used different technology but achieved higher MPG than the Prius thanks to adopting Kammback style chopped teardrop aerodynamics. The Prius "copied" that idea. Toyota is a Goliath compared to Honda, and you could say they are "smarter" with more "book smart" people or what they call in Japan "yuutousei" or model student. Honda of yore could be considered the B+ student who excels in athletics or the occasional autistic savant with flashes of brilliance. My wife always jokes about driving behind "slowyotas" - they usually are boring drivers who are focused on doing something other than driving, like make-up Every once in a while I'll comment on a Toyota being "nice" and she questions my loyalty. The one area that Toyota tried to follow Honda and never succeeded is F1, so in Japan, motorsports fans have huge respect for Honda.

Sure there others before the Prius. But they were not sold in numbers as they sold the Prius. And the concept was there in 1995. That is before the Insight was designed (which was an adaptation of the beautiful JVX).

Anyway, it really doesn't matter what car preference we have. I just hope next year Honda engine is powerful enough.

[ispano6]

But Toyota was first in Japan: 1997. At that point the Insight was still in a prototype state..

Hybrids were around much earlier than the first Toyota Prius. Honda's Insight used different technology but achieved higher MPG than the Prius thanks to adopting Kammback style chopped teardrop aerodynamics. The Prius "copied" that idea. Toyota is a Goliath compared to Honda, and you could say they are "smarter" with more "book smart" people or what they call in Japan "yuutousei" or model student. Honda of yore could be considered the B+ student who excels in athletics or the occasional autistic savant with flashes of brilliance. My wife always jokes about driving behind "slowyotas" - they usually are boring drivers who are focused on doing something other than driving, like make-up Every once in a while I'll comment on a Toyota being "nice" and she questions my loyalty. The one area that Toyota tried to follow Honda and never succeeded is F1, so in Japan, motorsports fans have huge respect for Honda.

Sure there others before the Prius. But they were not sold in numbers as they sold the Prius. And the concept was there in 1995. That is before the Insight was designed (which was an adaptation of the beautiful JVX).

Anyway, it really doesn't matter what car preference we have. I just hope next year Honda engine is powerful enough.

I don't think you get my point, I didn't bring up the Prius, I just pointed out Toyota is the arch nemesis of Honda lifers and their families and that they wouldn't have any tie ups. I could care less that the Prius sold in droves to uninspired drivers Honda has their way of doing things which is what I admire, which starts from its founder. The original NSX showed what makes Honda different and so does the hybrid NSX sold today. People will always point out it's flaws but I can look past it because beauty is in the eye of the beholder and loyal fans will root for them through thick and thin whatever they do. Make no mistake I still think Hachigo is a dolt and that Honda Aoyama's bean counters succumb to shareholders pressure but I also have faith that Honda's people will rise to the challenges put in front of them such as environmental responsibility. Just like how I think Honda will return to F1 when the formula is worth challenging and includes technology such as fuel cells etc. So until Honda is officially out of F1 I'll be waking up early with my daughters to watch the race and have red bull and pastries ready for pre-dawn breakfast

Edit: Wow, accused of fanboying in the Honda thread and voted down by a hater.