Planes, pickups and fuel cells: CEO Hiroyuki Yashino gives a lunchtime report on what Honda Motor Co. is up to - Trends: Management Q&A - Brief Article - Interview

Automotive Industries, April, 2002 by Lindsay Brooke

It's not your run-of-the-mill lunch when the chief executive of Honda Motor Co. sits down beside you and starts shooting the breeze. So it was on Automotive Industries' latest visit to Honda's Tochigi Proving Grounds, where we'd gone to drive a number of concept and prototypes including the new Civic Hybrid 4-door sedan. Yoshino is an engineer who is extremely comfortable speaking conversational English without an interpreter - a rarity among Japanese auto executives. He enjoys any conversation involving cars, trucks, motorcycles, aircraft and mobility in general. So with chopsticks in one hand and tape recorder in the other, we asked Honda's boss a few questions.

Q: In the late 1990s Honda was developing turbine engines for aircraft, and composite airframes. Where does your aerospace R&D stand today?

A: We're still at the research stage - not the development stage! We're purely working on the technical side, not the business side. We have a specific turbine development group. We're trying to achieve higher targets of engine fuel economy, for example. I'm always changing the targets to higher ones.

Q: Does Honda intend to be a turbine and airframe manufacturer?

A: Not necessarily. If we decide to make it a business, then we get into the development stage. But 30 years ago, we entered the bottom line of the automobile business with our Civic. If we enter the aircraft business, it might be in the bottom line - a "Civic type" aircraft. We believe that can contribute most to the public - low price, high efficiency.

Q: Does your company still intend to go it alone in automotive fuel cell development and production? Keep the cell stack design in house?

A: Yes, we're doing it our-selves, including developing how to make it. Of course, we're monitoring and testing all available technology. We still have relationship with Ballard, among others. For the infrastructure we have to come together as an industry.

Q: When do you believe fuel cell Honda vehicles will be available for retail sale - at a realistic price?

A: We need many, many breakthroughs for this technology to be at the realistic-price stage. One of the key areas needing a breakthrough is in catalysts. Fuel cells need lots of precious metals to make the "magic!" Those metals are costly. Before fuel cells become an everyday powertrain for cars, we have to overcome a 100-times challenge to reduce cost. But because of the newness of the technology, somebody - maybe Honda - may come up with a new invention.

But much of the vehicle technology cost is already where we need it to be. The "E-drive" portion of the vehicle - the motors and wiring and controllers - is very similar in size and weight and cost to the current engine and transmission system of vehicles today. It's the fuel-cell stack and reformer that are the additional cost.

Q: Some critics question whether the early fuel-cell vehicles will be fun to drive.

A: They can be "tuned" to be very fun to drive, because of the high torque of the electric motors. Some of that will come from the characteristics of the manufacturing, to some extent.

Q: General Motors is developing fuel cells for distributed power, such as residential power. Do you see potential for Honda as a maker of fuel cell-powered portable generators?

A: It's a possibility.

Q: How do you view the changes at Nissan Motor Co. during Carlos Ghosn's tenure there?

A: They've come up with some financial magic (laughs)! But in terms of product and technology, I don't see such a big change - yet.

Q: Will we ever see a Honda pickup truck?

A: I've been getting that question for over 20 years! We've been a truck maker in Japan for a long time. We've been studying pickups and have made some concepts.