Official Honda Press Release for Paris Motor Show

Honda at the Paris Motor show

Honda reveals the new European CR-V at the Paris Motor Show 2012 with the announcement that the new CR-V will be offered with Honda’s new 1.6-litre i-DTEC engine. The new smaller diesel engine is the first in a series of engines to be introduced in Europe under the name of Earth Dreams Technology. The 1.6-litre i-DTEC engine will be available on the Civic later this year and the CR-V from September 2013 with production at Honda’s UK factory in Swindon.

Three interesting questions from the CEO speech on September 21st.

Honda has published a video of the presentation by Honda CEO Ito-san on September 21st on its worldwide site at world.honda.com. The link is at http://world.honda.com/news/2012/c120921CEO-Speech/video01/index.html. TOV and 'Honda Fan' contributor Daniel, after watching the entire 1hour video, heard a rather interesting question from the Q&A session after the speech that we have not seen reported elsewhere.

CR-Z MMC makes surprise appearance in Indonesia Motor Show

Eventhough Honda officially announced the debut of the CR-Z MMC for the Paris Motor Show on the 29th of this month, in a surprise move, the popular Malaysian car blog paultan.org reports from the Indonesia Motor Show of the display of an unit of the 'new' CR-Z MMC. Reports from paultan.org confirms the exterior changes to the CR-Z but the interior could not be checked out because the display car was locked. Official information from Honda Indonesia states a max power of 120ps for the MMC LEA engine and 20ps for the LiOn IMA electric motor with combined max power of 136ps for the 6MT version and 135ps for the CVT version. Max power point is at 6,600rpm and redline is 6,800rpm. These figures virtually confirms the scoop info that we saw last week. 

Meanwhile, official Honda publications like the Honda world site at world.honda.com is still announcing the 'world debut' of the CR-Z MMC at the Paris Motor Show.

Summary of CEO Speech on September 21, 2012

• In 2010, I set Honda's "Direction for the next 10 years" which is "to provide good products to our customers with speed, affordability and low CO₂ emissions." Since then, we have been devoting our full efforts in leveraging Honda's unique technologies, ideas and ingenuity to create attractive products that please our customers who purchased such products. In addition, as a manufacturer of personal mobility products, we have been proactively executing various initiatives which contribute to a significant reduction of CO₂ emissions.

Scoop photos on new CR-Z MMC : Power Comparison

TOVA reader Alan posted some photos to our TOVA Facebook (thanks Alan), the same photos being also posted on our TOV forums. It is likely these photos are taken off a japanese magazine due to the quality of the photos, as well as the layout of the last photo which seems to be more of a montage of photos. Nevertheless, these photos gives us very interesting info on the new CR-Z MMC to be launched on the 27th, just 10 days away from the date of this posting.

The first photo, which I look at in this post, is the power comparison. From this comparison, we can see that the MMC will nett power increases for the CR-Z as follows:

(A little bit) More info on the CR-Z MMC

We have received a little bit more information on the CR-Z MMC which will be launched at this coming Paris Motor Show on the 27th of this month.

Firstly, while the official Honda of Europe's press release has called it the '2013 CR-Z', we have been hearing the term 'CR-Z GT'. It would seem that there is a possibility the MMC CR-Z will be called the CR-Z GT in Europe.

Honda has already announced that the MMC CR-Z/CR-Z GT will feature increases in power of both the petrol engine and the IMA electric motor but yet still keeping the same fuel consumption and emissions. What we have heard from our source is that the actual increase in power is 12ps/hp. However we are not told if this is for the petrol engine alone or for the combined output. Even if this 12ps/hp is for the combined (engine+IMA motor) output, it still means the new MMC CR-Z/CR-Z GT will now have 136ps/hp max power, which will finally make it more than just acceptable. 

Note however that as with all 'scoop' and 'insider' info, there is no guarantee that this is correct or that this will not change when the actual final car is launched in Paris.

The photo above is from Honda of Europe's media site.

New Civic variant and Civic Type-R for Europe

For this coming Paris motorshow which will be held on the 27th of this month, Honda has officially announced the debut of the new diesel variant of the 9Gen Civic. This variant will get a 1.6l i-DTEC diesel engine rated for a max power of 120ps/hp. Honda also announced that the CO2 emission will be only 94 g/km and that the Civic i-DTEC will deliver a combined consumption of 78.5mpg (according to Euro standards).

Prior to this Honda press release, the European motoring press has been widely announcing that a new 9Gen Civic Type-R  will be debuted this motor show. This new Euro-CTR was announced to be getting the 1.6 turbo-charged RSeries engine which Honda is using in the WTCC (World Touring Car Championship) Civic which was just launched. However, it is clear that the motoring press are mistaken.

A suggestion from someone with contacts inside Honda is that the European motoring press has mistaken Honda's information, thinking that Honda is talking about the new Euro CTR whereas they had been talking about the WTCC Civic instead.

Nevertheless, the same person has informed TOV/TOVA that the Euro CTR is in fact real, and that Honda of Europe is still pushing to launch it in the time frame of the new few months. This new Euro CTR will come in the form of a 5-door hatch and will have a 2.0l K-Series engine with a 7,500rpm redline and a max power rating of 220ps/hp.

The British market is credited as the primary driver for the return of the Euro Civic Type-R and this car will be built in Honda's Swindon plant in England.

The photo above is the new Civic 1.6i-DTEC and is supplied by Honda of Europe.