New CR-V to be launched in Malaysia this week
The next generation '4G' CR-V is coming to ASEAN. Finally. Delayed by the floods in Thailand, Honda has now recovered fully and is speeding up the introduction of models that have been affected. Therefore after this CR-V, expect the new 9G Accord to come very soon as well. As the 4G CR-V has already been launched in the U.S., Japan, and most other parts of the world for months already, more or less everything is known of the car. For ASEAN, the CR-V will come with only 1 powertrain option as usual, a 2.0-liter SOHC i-VTEC with a max power of 155
horsepower at 6,500 rpm, an increase of 5 horsepower as compared to its
predecessor. Torque is rated at 190 Nm at 4,300 rpm. As with all newest Honda models, the new 4G CR-V is also equipped with an 'ECON' mode that adjusts the powertrain operations for optimum fuel economy. As normal, the CR-V comes with the standard 5AT transmission.The launch for Malaysia will happen in the middle of this week itself.
6 comments:
But I have to comment on F1. When they decided to go into F1 last time there were a couple of factors which I've read from public publications.
One, they had been struggling for decades to inspire their new engineers. It got to the point where more than half of the new hires were interested in computer technolgy and robotics(Asimo). You can assign a work but what the management wanted was passions on cars. Mr. Uehara, a father of NSX & S2k started at Honda because he wanted to make a sports car. So the question on the management's mind was how to inspire the passions in the next generations?
2nd was Takuma Sato. Some saw the great potential in him. It was this unfilled dream of winning F1 with a Japanese driver, a Japanese engine and a Japanese car. Some of them got gone too far on their dreams, I guess.
They did hire an outsider to develop their car simply because they had no experiences in building F1 cars. They had looked at their race engines and had thought they had enough expertise to make it in F1 although they did admit they were a bit too naive.
So they had no choice but go along with BAT team because they were the only one who would allow Honda to use their own car body eventually. However their attitude was like "You supply us your engine and shut up!". And their pit crew were new to F1 and they had never used the telemetry data to set up their cars. It was like hunch and guts feelings. Honda engineers once discreetly had corrected all telemetry data for a whole season and presented them that they were doing not right, logical or scientifically but it was no avail until they finally acquainted the whole team 100%.
One of BAT's objections was it was too slow for new improvements or modifications to come about. Honda's objective was to learn engine production Technology. They stuck with simulated mass production technics to produce their engines instead of hand-made ones. It took several weeks to change one thing in the beginnings but they managed to bring it to down to few weeks. They were in F1 to learn as much as to win.
Another BAT complains was they saw the rotation of some engineers thus the new ones get some time to get used to it. But again it was Honda's traditional practice in F1 participation to rotate their engineers to be exposed to F1 experience. That are their excuses from what I had read from the public publications at the times. You know I don't have any inside infor's.
Lastly, I still don't see how they will go into F1 soon this time around. They have been spending money/cash for 2008 financial crisis, moving around operation because of the earthquake and rebuilding afterward, writting of their loss from the flooding and rebuilding their assets again, spending more than a billion dollars to introduce a new engine family including their production facility updates and such and still going, losing shares in Europe & China and have to put a lots of cash on the hoods to sell their cars in NA according to TOV, spending money on the new NSX and Civic Type-R to boot. I just don't to see how they can afford to do F1 this time around.
Oh one more thing, I think they've managed to put an electric motor to the output shaft on the new clutched CVT on their new IMA-2 system, just like the double clutched 6-speed AT on RLX and NSX. (sorry, this is nothing to do with CRV.)
But, ... I wanted to stay away but they always pull me back in. So called Honda fans at TOV still think Honda will come back to F1 in 2015. Maybe but I don't thibk so. What's absurd is that they think this outsider is to has started to work on the engine!!!
They think Honda will come back for their pride then they'd use somebody else to develop their engine(?) to prove what? Holy crap on cracker\o/
It's Honda. It is not Toyota. Hello? Anybody home?
One of their reasons is that the displacement of engine in F1 and Super GT will be the same and V6turbo? I have no idea but it's not all about the displacement. The engine in F1 is the part of car body's structural/chassis member where in GT it's not. Redline, top hp, power band would be different. F1 is so specialized I don't think they'd 'just' use something else to do it. They'd need a specifically customized engine for F1. That's why it's F1. Jesus Christ!
CRV9, thanks for sharing your thoughts. The rumours however have been flying fast and hard about Honda's possible re-entry to F1 in 2015.
Personally, I think it's all a waste of time.
Honda's cars of late have mostly been rather mundane and up till very recently, Honda has even openly said they want to drop sports cars from their line-up and have behaved in a way that sends the message that they are not bothered with their long time supporters whom by coincidence, mostly wants sporty Hondas.
Without any sports or sporty cars, why bother with participating in motorsports ? Do notice that motorsports do end with the word SPORTS...
So personally, I think instead of wasting time and money and energy on another F1 stint, Honda could much better spend those time, money and energy on improving their line-up, especially for the rest of the world where the competitors are getting fiercer and fiercer by the day.
I would agree with you. Going back to F1 is just going to waste money unless they are fully confident they will dominate again? To be honest I used to watch F1 alot and back then even stay up late to watch but nowadays it isn't even in my thoughts except when the topic pops up every now and then in TOV.
The thing about the improvement on the models, engine combo and such it now seems like looking more and more that what happened today is due to decisions made in 2007 and especially 2008. AVTEC. RWD. HSV. Then the sudden change in countries "green" requirements or whatever etc. Made worse with the 2011 tsunami and Thailand flood. I don't know how much of it is true but seeing that accoording to you they did say the new CRV is delayed STILL because of the floods, (and imo they are losing out to the CX5) I have to wonder just how bad everything to them is the past few years and the kinds of decisions they had to make.
I know some people kept writing "Wake up Honda", I think however, the real problem is that Honda is REALLY wide awake right now, esp. after the tsunami (don't build everything in Japan), flood (don't depend everything in factory in one region), and the recent negative reports toward them (don't make things that are "just good enough"), even though considering the handicap they still perform "well enough", although there is plenty of things to improve, which they did. So they are fully awake, only that some of the limbs might still be numb, it's possible they still can't operate 100% due to resources. And that is why I think going into F1 might not be too helpful. But im not in position to say, they might know something we don't etc.
As for some of the odd decisions, just a guess perhaps some of the engineers are put up to interview on what projects to keep and what not to and perhaps they didn't fight hard enough to keep them and just gave up? Is that what happened to the RWD, HSV, and AVTEC? Remember the story about the HondaJet - just how hard Michimasa Fujino had to fight to keep the project funded and going when they treatend to stop it.
If you remembered the flood, the water level was high into their factory. I'd say it was totaled. How long did they take to rebuild it shows how bad it was.
I think they had worked on the ED engines for a while. Everybody knows it's a matter of time when oil will be expemsive one day. BRIC are increasing the demand too. They might have thought it was the time to switch over. I think the popularity of hybrids in Japan would have been a surprise though.
Their most concern in the future is China. Within next 10 years there will be several chinese carmakers who will mass-produce cars.
And it is too naive to think Honda, or Toyota or korean carmakers to think they can increase their market share in China. The government will not allow it. It would be no benefit to them to allow asian automakers increase their market shares. They'd rather allow Europian & NA automakers to better their business because China want Euro & NA markets. It'd be better for political negotiations in international trade talks.
Question is how and where will they position themselve to survive well after next 10 years.
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