Ecologia, Medio Ambiente y Energias Renovables en la Naturaleza
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Jueves, 24 de Mayo de 2012
Honda Motor Co., Ltd., the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines by volume, announced its new line of motors, engines and transmissions for gasoline, electric, and hybrid cars all designed with the environment in mind.
Honda, also the sixth largest automaker in the world, revealed its new set of drivetrain components at the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show under the "Earth Dreams Technology" brand. Drivetrains refers to the group of components that generate the car's power and delivers it to the road.
The moniker highlights the company's plan to achieve top fuel efficiency in all of its manufactured vehicles within three years with an overall goal of cutting carbon emissions of its fleet by 30 percent by the end of the decade.
Falling under Earth Dreams Technology are six key improvements, most of them focused on increasing the fuel efficiency of gasoline engines. But Honda engineers also sought to improve the performance of hybrids and E.V. systems.
Honda's green arsenal
Part of Honda's upcoming green technologies is a new drivetrain designed for all-electric cars that would give cars a range of 123 miles and recharge time from a 240-volt outlet of three hours.
In comparison, the United States Environmental Protection Agency said the Nissan Leaf all-electric car, can only run 73 miles on a single charge a charging time of seven hours on a 240-V outlet. The Leaf is currently available in the market priced at around $35,200.
Honda said they managed to make its new E.V. drive train run longer and charge faster partly with the use of high capacity lithium-ion battery, though the Nissan Leaf and other electric cars in the market use the same technology.
The company has kept other parts of the technology under wraps.
Earth Dreams Technology also includes a drive system for plug-in hybrid cars, a type of vehicle that uses two or more different power sources to run.
Compared to traditional hybrids that use electric motors mainly for backing up or idling, plug-in hybrids can run primarily on the electric motor getting power from a battery that can be charged from a standard household outlet.
Previously, electric motors only use on-board batteries that are constantly being charged by the gasoline engine and by the motion of the wheels and the brakes.
The efficiency gains of Honda's plug-in hybrid drive train were not detailed but the company said the system gives drivers to use a 120-kilowatt motor and a lithium ion battery pack to run solely under electric power or a gasoline engine, a technology similar to the Prius hybrid from Toyota Motor Corp.
The two-motor hybrid system is set to debut in unnamed midsize Honda vehicles to be produced starting with a plug-in hybrid model in 2012 and a hybrid model in 2013, the company said in a statement.
The Tokyo-baker car maker also developed a hybrid drive system for large-sized vehicles featuring all-wheel drive, a market primarily dominated sports utility vehicles and pickups from Toyota, Ford, and Mazda.
The revamped Super Handling All-Wheel Drive or SH-AWD system uses three electric motors to assist a 3.5-liter V6 engine, giving the car the power of running a bigger V8 engine with the fuel economy of a four-cylinder engine, Honda said in a statement.
Two 20-kW electric motors at the rear wheels are used for torque vectoring, giving the car the ability to vary the amount of power sent to each wheel to aid in cornering. A third 30 kW gives additional drive assistance.
It also gets a high-performance lithium-ion battery.
The Earth Dreams product line up also include seven new gasoline engines, a downsized diesel engine billed to be the lightest in the world, three new transmission systems for mini, compact, and mid-size vehicles.
The checkered flag?
The new set of components appears to be Honda's answer to a growing trend among cars markers worldwide seeking to have their cars to be as fuel efficient and green as possible. Some companies focused on alternative transportation while others just focused on efficiency tweaks in gasoline cars.
Mazda announced its SkyActiv program in November last year but it skipped E.V. car development and focused on tweaking gasoline and diesel engines. It also built lightweight cars chassis to improve fuel economy.
Veteran car makers like Toyota, for instance, have the Hybrid Synergy Drive for its hybrids running since the 1990's while Mercedes-Benz launched Blue Efficiency three years ago which improved its gasoline car's aerodynamics, weight, drivetrains, and used recycle materials.
South Korea's Hyundai Motors also announced a similar line up in 2008 called "Blue Drive." It revamped its current gasoline engine designs but also include plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Fuel Cell electric vehicles, a technology which has not caught on with both automakers and consumers due to its costs.
