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Oh really? If others didn't call it Assist you might have a point. Pretty much EVERYONE else calls it Driver Assist; only Tesla is brash (and stupid) enough to call it "Autopilot".

However, the fuel cell stack is very expensive. It would be much cheaper and simpler just to add some more batteries to the vehicle. Fuel cells really make no sense in a normal car.

Honda and GM have a fuel cell partnership and while GM is only doing research projects, Honda has actually brought a product to market so that they can get the experience and grow the fueling network. The primary product of this partnership is a reduced-cost fuel cell stack which Honda claims will make FCVs profitable to sell. This change is literally coming in the next generation of FCV, so expect it within a decade.

GM just this week announced 20+ models by 2020

No, they announced they planned to have 20 (not 20+) electric models by 2023 (not 2020). Announcing a plan is a lot different than delivering cars, carmakers are notorious for not following through on plans. I'll believe it once they actually start shipping cars (or at least set up production lines for them) and I think that's when Tesla will start worrying about them as well. They are currently shipping the Bolt, which is a decent competitor to the Model 3.

Ford

Ford is planning electric vehicles but all they sell now is "compliance cars", gas cars that have been converted to electricity. Their first designed electric car is planned for 2020.

Toyota

They have the plug-in Prius, but other than that I'm not aware of an all-electric Toyota that competes with Tesla. There was the Scion iQ EV, but AFAIK they no longer produce that and even when they did they only made a few hundred of them.

Nissan

This is where the competition comes for the Model 3, the Leaf is a capable vehicle and Nissan seems to be serious about keeping it up to date.

Honda

Well, technically they did just start shipping the Clarity electric in August, but with an 89 mile range, it certainly isn't a serious competitor to the Model 3 or Leaf.

Yes, Tesla will have competition for existing automakers, but that's good for the consumer and good for the environment. I hope they all can execute well on their plans and I'm sure Tesla does as well, having viable electric vehicles from multiple manufacturers will expand the EV market and infrastructure.

No, it doesn't work that way. These are to be sold as actual product, and you can't equate this to R&D through funny logic.

Yes, it very much does work that way. It works exactly that way, especially in the auto industry. For example, right now Honda is selling (well, leasing) an unprofitable fuel cell vehicle in California (where the infrastructure is) and then going on to pay for customers' fuel . If you manage to use all the fuel they will give you, then you will be effectively paying something like $99/mo for the lease. Dealers will make a trivial amount of money, just enough to bother with getting the vehicle in the door, and Honda will actually lose money given the cost of supporting the venture and doing the R&D, but the R&D is what the project is actually about.

The next generation of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle is going to actually be profitable due to a joint venture between GM and Honda to pool their knowledge (and patents) and build a cost-effective fuel cell. GM took the tack of taking their HFCV technology to the military with the Colorado ZH2 technology demonstrator program. Instead of commuter sedans, they built a handful of million-dollar military test vehicles. They're taking the approach that you imagine automakers have to take, while Honda is taking the other approach that they can choose to take. But GM has [in?]famously gone the other way on that, as well. Perhaps they're just a little leery now, when it comes to advanced technology vehicles. Regardless, by the time it's actually profitable to sell a HFCV to the public, Honda will be the automaker with the most experience with them.

See Asimo: http://asimo.honda.com/

Honda generators are very quiet and extremely well-engineered. A favorite among the RV crowd.

http://powerequipment.honda.co...

Maybe Boston Dynamics engineers should get one of these and do some reverse-engineering.

To me, the X looks a lot like something you can buy for $27K from Honda.

Full of shit? In every case, I typed the model into Google, and took the lowest number. The rest of the weight are for options, so they are not relevant.

The ones I mentioned were because the Volt and CRV had already been discussed. I have an F-150, and it the best selling vehicle in the US for the past 32 years. (source: wikipedia) I chose the Tesla because some people cream their pants green whenever they hear that word.

Tough shit that Ford is making an aluminum F-150. Good for them. The Tesla is also aluminum, so it is an apples-vs-apples comparison.

That said, here are the numbers right from the manufacturers:

Ford F-150 4x2 = 4,050 LBS source: http://www.ford.com/trucks/f15...
(Note that even their tiny engine has 325 HP and 375 ft-lbs of torque, which is necessary for a truck)
-vs-
Tesla S = 4,647 LBS source: http://www.teslamotors.com/sup...
(If the Tesla has higher horsepower, it is only useful for making the owner's dick get hard.)

Honda CRV = 3358 lbs source: http://automobiles.honda.com/c...
-vs-
Chevy Volt Base Curb Weight = 3786 lbs source: http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-...

Despite what you want to believe, the numbers are what they are. And I just wasted a half-hour looking them up for you.

Or maybe this in the trunk: http://powerequipment.honda.co...

Hydrogen fueling doesn't need a special distribution network. Honda developed a self contained hydrogen fueling station that uses regular water and runs from solar power in 2001! There's also a home version that runs off natural gas and provides heat, electricity and hydrogen for fueling.

http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/FCX/station/

I believe this is what your looking for. http://automobiles.honda.com/f...
Increasing the number of convenient hydrogen refueling options is one of the last remaining hurdles to widespread adoption of fuel cell vehicles.
Honda took a proactive approach to this challenge, and our research and development in this area is ongoing.
We have experience in the development of power stations to generate heat and electricity (cogeneration technology), as well as experience with home-refueled electric and natural gas vehicles.
So it was a natural next step for us to leverage that learning to explore potential solutions to the hydrogen refueling dilemma.
The Home Energy Station
Honda has operated an experimental Home Energy Station in Torrance, California, since 2003.
The Home Energy Station, which generates hydrogen from natural gas, is designed to provide heat and electricity for the home through fuel cell cogeneration and to supply fuel for a hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicle.
Honda has worked in cooperation with technology partner Plug Power, Inc., to reduce size and increase convenience in each subsequent generation of the Home Energy Station.
In 2007 Honda developed the still experimental Home Energy Station IV—which is even more efficient and better suited for home use than previous versions.
CO2 emissions for a household using the Home Energy Station are 30% lower than those for an average household using a gasoline-engine car and commercial electricity and heat. Honda believes in a future society powered by hydrogen, and we are serious about our commitment to contribute to the development of useful refueling solutions.

The limits of existing battery chemistries is what will reduce the LiveWire to an expensive hipster commuter toy. A 54 mile range per charge is not sufficient for anything but a typical daily Home - Office - Grocery Store - Home - Recharge cycle and the price will kill consumer interest. No one is going to buy this EV motorcycle for weekend back road twisties or poker runs. Or Track Day. Or pretty much anything else people use motorcycles for.

For electric vehicles to be practical a significant breakthrough in battery technology must occur on two fronts - Batteries must become significantly cheaper, have significantly higher energy density (storage), or both.

One of the many reasons an EV motorcycle makes little sense is that it erases one of the attractions of motorcycles in the first place - Price. $4-12k will buy nearly any Japanese brand you care to consider, brand new off the dealer floor. I absolutely guarantee the LiveWire will cost > $20k, just like the other boutique electric cycles out in the wild. That's well into "fuck it, I'll buy a Prius" territory.

  Then, add the "Harley Tax." Ha! And you thought the "pride of ownership / marketing brainwashing tax" only applied to your MacBook! Tell that to people who ride what are essentially farm tractor engines sold for > $20,000.

A brand new Honda CBR 250 costs $4,000 and will get > 50 mpg. http://powersports.honda.com/2...
A Honda VStrom 700 costs $9,000 and gets >60 mpg.

Neither of the two random bikes I listed above needs to be plugged into a 220v outlet for nearly 4 hours to "refuel." You can ride both of them all day on one "charge" of fuel and refill them in 1 minute at any one of hundreds of thousands of fuel stations.

John McCain may have been right about one thing, years ago during his campaign - We need a "Manhattan Project" level of concerted effort into producing an evolutionary leap in battery technology. THAT will change the world - not shoehorning a pile of laptop batteries into a motorcycle frame and calling it the wheel reinvented.

Someone in Milwaukee got tired of watching Elon hog all the media adoration a year or so ago, and decided to create a Halo product that won't break even but will bring young buyers back to Harley Dealerships.

Here's a Honda press-release on it. It is entirely possible that the S2000 system is something different, but I have a feeling that this is just a combination of an EPAS system that does something similar, in addition to varying weight. I agree with you on the lack of mechanical linkage. Nissan has some system that retains the driveshaft for times when the steer-by-wire is malfunctioning, but I have a feeling that by the time it's malfunctioning (10 years on), the mechanical fall-back mechanism will likely be faulty too.

This isn't exactly new. While I don't know how exactly the system works, Honda offered variable gear steering on the S2000 Type V 14 years ago. A while I don't know if any "for the masses" cars has variable gear steering, there are a number of manufacturers who currently offer it. (BMW, for example.)

A pure electric first gear would marry the best torque range of electric motors would free the IC engine of its low end torque requirements. No battery, no regenerative braking or fancy nancy stuff.

That's the Chevy Volt. Modest engine and battery, good electric motor. The Honda FCX has electric drive, a fuel cell, and ultracapacitors for acceleration boost.

A pure electric transmission with an IC engine? That's a Diesel-electric locomotive. Works very well, especially with modern solid-state controls. Overkill for a car, where getting started isn't that hard and clutches are in slip for only a second or two. A huge win for trains, where getting all that mass moving is the hardest part of the job.

They just move the power generation to someone else's back yard.

Why is there no hype around a CNG car that you can buy today?
http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan/civic-natural-gas.aspx

It does not have any (large)(expensive) toxic batteries.
It can be worked on buy a regular internal combustion mechanic with minimal special tools.
You pay no gas tax.
You do not have to pass emissions testing.
It enjoys the same HOV/Clean Car status
You fill it up in your garage. Never go to a gas station again.
It has almost ZERO emissions (tail pipe).
The infrastructure is already in place, hang a pump on the wall of your garage and plug the hose in when you park.
The fuel cost is cents per gallon not dollars
The performance is on par with gasoline.

I'll tell you why, it doesn't have any exclusive patents (all expired) for corporate exploitation,
or new technology to lock you into a brand.

Indeed I did, though I had Asimo in mind when I wrote the comment.

Dang. Forgot to mention, it can run your cars, too. http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-natural-gas/

Forgot to post a link to the Honda FXC Clarity http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/refueling.aspx

As long as its your robot you can parts it out do your heart's content.

But if I send my robot down the street to get groceries, I don't want someone yanking its memory modules or salvaging its servos just because it was running around loose and had no feelings.

We really don't have many laws that cover a device that runs around in public spaces doing errands and perhaps spending money (digital or otherwise).
Yes its property, and my property rights may still apply, but I'm not sure that's enough to prevent someone from declaring it abandoned property and partsing it out on the spot.

There are more imminent questions that need to be answered:
Are they licensed like cars to be in public spaces? Carry and spend money? Carry weapons? Plug in and recharge when they need? Be searched by police at will? Will Police disable and memory strip my Asimo just because it might have recorded a police beatdown while passing a dimly lit alley?

My insight's only 2000 pounds

Not unless you took a bunch of stuff out of it. http://automobiles.honda.com/insight-hybrid/specifications.aspx?group=dimensions

I thought this was obvious. Gasoline & battery aren't the only ways to make a car go.

Take this factory option Natural Gas Civic for example:
http://automobiles.honda.com/shop/civic-natural-gas.aspx

With a little work, there's also Hydrogen, compressed air (for really short ranges), and there's always the totally renewable option of burning wood in steam powered cars. Not ver convienient, but it *is* an option.

I have a digital spedometer in my Civic and it works just fine:
http://automobiles.honda.com/images/2008/civic-sedan/interior-gallery/gal_lg6.jpg

I thought I would hate it too, but I find that I don't have to estimate my speed anymore to the close 5mph and spend less time on it.

Maybe you did. And if so, WELCOME, to the woooorld of tomorrow!

http://automobiles.honda.com/fit-ev/

No fusion though :-(

In fact, you can buy a Honda Civic CNG right now.

The lack of carbon in your engine will make it last *much* longer.

You can buy a natural gas powered car now, and have been able to for quite some time.

The 1981 Civic was 148.4" long, 62.6" wide and 52.8" tall. The 2012 Civic is 177.3" long, 69.0" wide and 56.5" tall. Is all that extra size going to safety measures, or is the 2012 model just a bigger car? What are the performance metrics (acceleration and top speed) for the 1981 vs. 2012? Is the extra horsepower (and consequently lower fuel efficiency) purely going to support the extra weight, or is it also going to support higher performance?

Off topic, but related to your post. My family has had Hondas for 25 years now (we're probably getting the 6th this year). Honda is generally pretty good on things. But why are you going to the dealer to reset your radio? You can do it yourself.

The Honda succeeded as reliable user-friendly everyday transportation. Yet the Tesla failed miserably as a supercar. That is all there is to it.

I can test drive and buy a Tesla today in something like 30 different cities around the world. Where can I buy a Honda FCX? Oh that's right, individual consumers cant really buy them at all. What was that about the FCX's "reliable every day transportation"? As far as I can see, the FCX fails at being an actual car, period.

To be a touch US-centric, why not the Honda Civic NGV?

Its called Toyota went for fly by wire. There was non of this when the throttle body was an actual link to the accelerator. If you do not do proper control system design you do not get an F-16, you get a fly away Toyota. Cars can get away with such because the link between the throttle body and the accelerator has always been physical until a few years back.

Hasn't electronic fuel injection been around since the 70's? It's been almost 20 years since I've had a mechanically controlled accelerator:

http://www.honda.com/newsandviews/article.aspx?id=2003112035704

2003 Honda Accord -- Drivetrain

Electronic Throttle Control
Another factor that contributes to the world-class performance of the Accord's new V6 engine is an all-new electronic throttle control (ETC) system. This system controls the throttle during transmission shifts for improved smoothness. It also allows for throttle control to be incorporated in the traction control system and integrates the cruise control function into the ETC. This computer controlled drive-by-wire (DBW) package is a feature that will be incorporated into other future Honda powerplants. Key system components include an accelerator position sensor, electronically controlled throttle body, DBW driver unit, and the main electronic control unit (ECU).

Hello, did you even look or are you making things up? the fiesta IS certianly sold in the USA, they are all over the place. and he is only off by $3000 they are $15,000. same as the civic base DX is $15,000.....

http://www.ford.com/cars/fiesta/
http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan/price.aspx

try real info. he is pretty damn close. and he is correct, only a idiot would buy a leaf or volt at the current prices.

Export the technology to Japan and you get muscle suits to help nurses and factory floor workers. The military is not the driving force for technology in every country.

Makes sense since, you know, Japan doesn't exactly have a military. I think it had to do something with WWII. Not sure, since I'm on Slashdot and therefore know an insultingly small amount about history.

Export the technology to Japan and you get muscle suits to help nurses and factory floor workers. The military is not the driving force for technology in every country.

For those with Flash and too lazy to navigate the Honda website, here's a link to a nice 2 minute video commemorating ASIMO's birthday. Now when can we get one that has all the capabilities of Servo, the humanoid robot assistant in The Sims?

For those with Flash and too lazy to navigate the Honda website, here's a link to a nice 2 minute video commemorating ASIMO's birthday. Now when can we get one that has all the capabilities of Servo, the humanoid robot assistant in The Sims?

A CNC Civic beats them all, at $1.41 a gallon equivalent(site near me, filling from home is a little less than that), and a roughly 30 miles combined(24/36) for that amount of energy, you're looking at a cost of ~3.8 cents a mile(or the equivalent of about 75-80mpg versus a gallon of gasoline). Plus, it has the magic white sticker for carpool lane(the "forever" one). It works and runs exactly like a normal Civic, just with half the trunk space is all.(only negative)

Honda's been selling this for 12 years now. You can even buy a filling device to fill from home - your garage is your gas station, in effect, and so that makes the 180-260(city/highway - tank holds roughly ~7 "gallons" equivalent of CNG) mile range even less of a problem. It also qualifies(as does the home pump) for the same incentives as Hybrids, but has no limit on numbers per year like hybrids - so your rebate/refund/etc is pretty much guaranteed.

http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx/
$25K (not including tax incentives) and a lot better than a Prius if you want to really "go green".

At some point that technology will be available and work. I mean if Honda can include an airbag with some of their motorcycles Motorcycle airbag I doubt that this technology won't get implemented at some point in the future. There's of course also the newly available radar for checking blindspots in cars.

"Really? would you like to wager on that?" Yes. http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-si-coupe/exterior-360-view.aspx http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-coupe/exterior-360-view.aspx What do I win?

"Really? would you like to wager on that?" Yes. http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-si-coupe/exterior-360-view.aspx http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-coupe/exterior-360-view.aspx What do I win?

The Prius, in my opinion, is one of the ugliest cars in all of creation.

I think it looks pretty cool. But that's all a matter of personal taste anyway, so there's little point in arguing about it. If you don't like the way a model looks, don't buy one.

Why is it that any sort of hybrid or electric car has to be hideous?

Of course it doesn't have to be.... if you want a boring look, that's available too.

(I fear the day Suburu makes an electric car, the level of smug will be unprecedented)

I think the constant sniping about the alleged 'smugness' of hybrid vehicle owners says more about the critics than it does about the hybrid owners themselves. Insecure, much?

Hopefully this alliance between Tesla and Toyota will give us sexy electric cars that don't cost a fortune.

Amen to that!

ahha...no.

well not no but stupid.
It's about density, volume, and storage. That's it.
If something like this works in mass, then we will be able to create plenty of hydrogen.

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/

there is nothing wrong with a hydrogen car. It's just a matter of creating a good method of hydrogen creation and storage.

As an alternative energy source bio-diesel from algae may be great. it may even be the way we goy.
Personally I hate the smell and noise of diesel.

For the record, where I work used bio-diesel and I have volumes of reports showing it's costs and effects on maintenance. So I actually have good real world data on it.
We are moving away from it because it isn't practice or cost effective. Not by a long shot. If it was a little more expensive we would of stuck with it, but tripling the maintenance costs? no way. we will go back to 5 or 10% biodiesel.

Right, I meant the "let's have the button fly in from the left and bounce around" animation. True vector animation doesn't have a replacement yet. The canvas tag could theoretically do it, but I've heard things about it's speed and it's real drawing, not moving vector objects around like Flash so it would be much much more difficult to do.

Animated SVG should be able to do some of it, but since static SVG often doesn't work well in browsers right now, the animated version would be a pipe dream to try to use.

Most animation I see on the web on people's websites is things sliding around, pointless eye candy that showing/hiding/moving images could do. Take this VW site. A quick look makes me think quite a bit could be done with HTML, but it would be really complicated. I understand using flash for that. A few months ago a friend showed me a car company's web site (someone smaller, not one of the biggest 4 or 5) that just had an amazing video of an exploding (as in exploded diagram) car that seamlessly transitioned to let you click around to different models and they swung in and out and... I have no idea how you could do it in HTML.

But compare that with Toyota and Honda's main pages. Both have pop-up lists of cars that you can hover over to get more links. Toyota did it all with HTML, Honda used Flash. Honda has a little more animation, but nothing too fancy. So many companies just use Flash to show a little slide show of clickable images, like Gamespot does.

For these simpler uses, Flash is no longer necessary. Flash has enough abilities that it (or something like it) will always have a place. But the "we need to use Flash here" bar is much higher than browsing many popular sites would have you believe.

http://world.honda.com/news/2007/c071211Enabling-Multiple-ASIMO-to-Work/index.html

So, Asimo doesn't exists all of a sudden?

Hey, hey, why skip over India, where the best 'Japanese' motorcycles are made?

I know! Like these bozos trying to sell this pedal-bike for $4,600 and it doesn't even have a motor like the $4,000 Honda Rebel motorcycle!!! What are they thinking? That people have varied needs and interests? Pfft! Good luck! I predict Apple is bankrupt by year-end.

What I think we're going to find is that one type of system won't be sufficient for us create an AI. Early work was done on symbolic systems. Those eventually worked pretty well on idealized domains. They fell apart when they tried to interact with the real world. Neural nets are starting to handle simple real worlds tasks, but can't handle complex domains.

My thought is that we'll see something like this:

Audio/Visual/Etc. Input --> Neural Net-based symbol extractor --> Symbolic Planning and Decision System --> Neural Net-based motor control --> Motors

In this integrated system:

1. Neural nets will be developed to process raw input and generate a set of symbols.

2. Expert systems, symbolic planning systems, knowledge bases, etc. will work together to reason about the input and make a decision what action to take.

3. Another set of neural networks will then translate actions in a symbolic form into control inputs for servos and actuators.

I have no idea how the Asimo robot works under the hood, but it seems to be something similar to this ( http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/technology/intelligence.html ). Anyone have any more details about how Honda implemented the different recognition capabilities?

One important problem of the electric car is the time you have to spend charging it.

However, this doesn't happen with an hydrogen car like the Honda FCX Clarity car.

And it is also cheaper than the electric Mini (600$ a month)

More info at:

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/

http://cbr.honda.com/?section=cbr1000rr&page=photo