Honda Bets Scientists in Secret Engine Lab Can Outsmart Toyota

Here's an interesting read about Honda. My favorite auto maker.
Side note: I hit 222222.2 back in 2003 on my 1988 Honda Accord.

Here are some excerpts from the article...

In 1973, junior engineer Takeo Fukui helped put Honda Motor Co. on the U.S. map with a Civic subcompact that met clean-air standards without a $1,000 tailpipe filter known as a catalytic converter. He was 28.

Today, as Honda's chief executive officer, Fukui, 61, is racing to repeat his triumph at a lab 68 miles (109 kilometers) north of Tokyo. There, engineers are building a diesel engine for 2009 that Honda says will meet both new U.S. limits and more stringent California rules on soot and nitrous oxide emissions and still use 30 percent less fuel than gasoline models.

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Organic Soybeans

It earned the crown as the top organic soybean processor in Ohio after determining that shipping empty auto-part crates from U.S. plants back to Japan was wasteful. It hired local farmers to grow soybeans and now sends the crop home in once-empty containers.

In February, Honda started selling a dietary supplement made from fermented soybeans that helps dissolve blood clots.

John Mendel, Honda's U.S. sales chief, says the far-ranging research can appear haphazard. ``This is something that bugs investors, because they don't know where we're going,'' he says.

Investors will tolerate the strategy as long as Honda stays true to its values, he says. ``We want people to ask, `Will the world need Honda in the year 2010?' and we want them to answer, `Hell yes,''' he says.

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Conservative vs. Crazy

Honda and Toyota need each other, even as they're grinding competitors into the dust, says James Womack, president of the Lean Enterprise Institute research group in Brookline, Massachusetts.

``Without Honda, Toyota would be too conservative, and without Toyota, Honda would be too crazy,'' he says.

Toyota sold 7.9 million cars and trucks last year, more than double the 3.4 million Honda sold. A big threat is that Toyota revs up production and its marketing machine, leaving Honda further behind.


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