While GM and Toyota have shown interest in making plug-in hybrids, Honda probably won't do PHEVs if Takeo Fukui has anything to say about it. And Takeo probably does have something to say about it, considering he is Honda's president and CEO. Honda is the second largest hybrid car maker, after Toyota, but Takeo thinks plug-in hybrids like the Volt are just electric vehicles with an "unnecessary" gas motor with no "real advantages." Takeo says he could make one in two years but don't think it will "reduce emissions." Here are some of his quotes from a Reuters article out today:
"My feeling is that the kind of plug-in hybrid currently proposed by different auto makers can be best described as a battery electric vehicle equipped with an unnecessary fuel engine and fuel tank. ... I'm not sure what kind of real advantages they [plug-ins] would have. ... I don't think that [plug-ins] will contribute to the global environment or to reducing carbon dioxide."
Honda recently stopped selling the Insight
Civic
hybrid but plans a big push for hybrids in 2009. Takeo thinks that, years from now, battery and hydrogen fuel cell technology have real promise as well. Be warned Takeo, you sound a lot like Rick before he came over to the green side. GM and Toyota are the two largest automakers in the world and they must have found some sort of necessary advantage to making plug-ins.
[Source: Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters]
"My feeling is that the kind of plug-in hybrid currently proposed by different auto makers can be best described as a battery electric vehicle equipped with an unnecessary fuel engine and fuel tank. ... I'm not sure what kind of real advantages they [plug-ins] would have. ... I don't think that [plug-ins] will contribute to the global environment or to reducing carbon dioxide."
Honda recently stopped selling the Insight
[Source: Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters]
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