Honda CEO says clean diesel cars to be profitable
By Chang-Ran Kim, Asia auto correspondent
DETROIT (Reuters) - The head of Honda Motor Co said on
Sunday that the Japanese automaker’s yet-to-be released clean
diesel cars will be profitable immediately, unlike expensive
gasoline-electric hybrid cars that still yield little or no
profit after a decade on the market.
“Our diesel cars are going to have an appropriate level of
profit from the start,” Chief Executive Takeo Fukui told a
small group of reporters in an interview at the North American
International Auto Show in Detroit.
He said Honda’s clean diesel cars, to be launched in the
United States next year, will not require a urea tank as most
European systems do.
The use of aluminum in the cylinder block instead of steel
would also allow it to manufacture the engines using its
existing gasoline engine facilities, keeping initial
investments down, Fukui added.
Honda’s new diesel drive train generates and stores ammonia
within a two-layer catalytic converter to turn nitrogen oxide
into harmless nitrogen.
The new system will clear the same emissions regulations as
gasoline in the United States, Fukui said.
Japan’s second-biggest automaker is set to announce later
this afternoon the launch of its first ultra-clean diesel car
in the United States in 2009, as planned.
Honda’s premium Acura brand will be the first to get the
four-cylinder diesel engine, Fukui said. Models fueled by V6
diesel engines will follow after 2010, he added. Continued…
