In the recent 2nd Philippine International Motor Show, INQUIRER.net speaks with several car manufacturers about the recent concept cars they have lined up in the future. These “cars of the future” are now using other alternative means of powering engines, including electricity (using more powerful and less expensive batteries). Hybrid cars are also the rage today, as manufacturers respond to pressures the global green movement to come up with ways to cut on energy consumption amid the oil price increases.

Here’s a video interview with Mitsubishi vice president for customer service Dante Santos who explains how an electric car works.

Here’s a video interview with Korean carmaker Kia Motors explaining the displayed “fuel cell electric vehicle” or FCEV. The FCEV runs on electricity produced by combining stored liquid hydrogen with oxygen, as explained by Edgardo Castro Jr., training manager for Columbian Autocar Corp, Kia’s local distributor.

Here’s also a closer look at Toyota’s hybrid Prius sedan that alternately runs on gas and electricity. Toyota has created a hybrid pickup naming it as one of their “cars for the future.” Unveiled earlier this year, the Toyota A-Bat is further elaborated on by Allen Rufo, Toyota Philippines vice president for customer service marketing, who also gives his views about hybrid vehicles in the local market. Video taken at the Philippine International Motor Show held at the World Trade Center.

Finally, Japanese carmaker Honda unveils a new version of the Jazz, also called Fit in other countries. In this video interview, Honda Philippines head of sales operations Voltaire Gonzales talks about the new features in the Jazz.

By Tessa R. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer

BRING it on!

Now that could have been a cute takeoff for a fun motoring article, except that at almost P50 per liter (and counting), the cost of fuel is no longer a laughing matter. And the next time legendary ol’ Tito Poch utters this now-famous sentence, it may be to face a rioting mob of motorists fed up with the rising cost of the rice-gasoline cocktail. Intoxicating thought, isn’t it?

For those who haven’t gone to the extent of installing their cars with LPG tanks, or at the extreme dumping their old (or new) gas guzzlers for some two-wheeled fuel misers, they may be holding on to the hope that, perhaps, changing some wasteful driving habits may do the trick of squeezing out a few more kilometers out of that last precious drop of fuel.

Some car manufacturers, understandably, are willing to help. Honda Cars Philippines Inc. (HCPI) recently held the motoring media edition of a fuel-efficiency driving competition on a combination of city and highway driving. This turns out to be a bold move on the part of HCPI, which cited a survey that most Honda owners still preferred performance over fuel economy.

Here’s Mario Marasigan, the director for the Department of Energy’s Energy Utilization Management Bureau, and HCPI president and GM Hiroshi Shimizu signaling the start of Honda Challenge Cup.

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By Tessa R. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer

OH, you lucky devil, mister or miss sole winner of the biggest lotto jackpot in this small corner of the world. Two hundred forty nine million pesos is truly a mind-boggling amount, and we’re sure you’d want to do a million things with that moolah. But we’re also equally certain that the first thing you’d want to buy with your “hard-earned” cash is some decent wheels, wouldn’t you?

So, before you run to the nearest showroom and clean out everything that’s on display, check out first the latest cars introduced by the leading carmakers. Hey, Inquirer Motoring won’t tell you to save your money (you’d probably laugh your head off if we said that), but what we could probably help save you is time.

The new Honda Accord and the new Mazda 6 — direct competitors and both former grand winners of Car of the Year Philippines — have been launched by their respective manufacturers Honda Cars Philippines and Mazda Philippines.

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By Andre Palma
Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE 2006 launch of the 8th generation Civic meant a lot of things for many people. For Honda the car made a statement that a product that grows up can still be fun to drive. To the competition, a benchmark was again be set for the tricky compact sedan market. Everyday motorists got a bigger car, with an efficient engine and styling that lived up to the times. For some of us though, a new Civic only meant one thing.

While 90 percent of the population will consider the Honda Civic as an entry-level sedan that seats five comfortably and does the daily commute without fussing or missing a beat, smaller niches in the market sees it otherwise. Another nine percent see this car as a blank canvas, a car that allows them to express their individuality and passion for tinkering with cars.

Tragedies in personal expression can be seen rolling the streets of Manila on a daily basis, festooned with every conceivable aftermarket trinket and bauble. The remaining one percent, see the Civic for what it really is.

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By Tessa R. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer

THEY say the best measure of a product or service’s quality is its ability to thrive even when its competitors are having a tough time. And such is evident in a highly competitive market as the automotive industry, where consumer loyalty can be retained or swayed as swiftly as car manufacturers can produce new vehicle models.

Honda Cars Philippines Inc., however, has two models that prove that when you hit the bull’s eye of your target market, loyalty and consequently continued sales are almost always assured despite the influx of competitor models. The Honda Civic has captured a 63-percent market share of the compact class sedan, while the CR-V has gained a 25-percent share in its class. The two vehicles have bolstered HCPI’s No. 2 position in the automotive industry.

In a statement released by HCPI citing Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines (Campi) report, Honda led the passenger segment in January with a 35-percent market share. HCPI sold 1,045 units in January out of the total passenger car unit sales of 2,961.Arnel Doria, HCPI VP for marketing, said that with continued positive sales trend, Honda hopes to significantly contribute to Campi’s 125,000-unit year-end industry sales target.

HCPI registered a 65-percent increase over the same period in 2007.

Doria pointed out that despite the 23-percent downtrend in the passenger car market compared to the December 2007 performance, Honda even managed to post a 19-percent growth.

Industry historical trends show that the industry normally experiences a sales slump at the beginning of every year due to advanced demands in December when buyers take advantage of aggressive year-end promotions.Honda credits its passenger cars dominance with its iconic Civic model, which has registered a 14,000-unit accumulated sales since its introduction in April 2006. Mirroring buyers’ approval, various industry awards have been heaped on the Civic for its superior engine performance, fuel economy, dynamic styling and overall value. Overall, the Civic emerged as one of the top three best-selling models in 2007.

The CR-V is also credited by HCPI as adding a significant contribution in sustaining its position with 431 unit sales.

By Andre Palma
Inquirer

CHOOSING a driver’s car is often problematic. Most of the cars that can really rip up the open road at copious amounts of speed are handicapped by prices that would require 25-year mortgages. We would be so lucky to be in that capacity, wouldn’t we?

Thankfully, all is not lost. There are still some cars out there that can fill the budget performance driving requirements of the everyday Filipino motorist. The age of the budget driver’s car is upon us, where low prices don’t automatically translate into the lack of satisfaction.

A blend of simplicity, fun

The mini car segment is loaded to the brim with automobiles that not only drive well, but also are merciful on the bank balance. The Philippine market is lucky though. In the ranks of these small two-box wonders is an automobile that blends simplicity and punch better than most anything in the market today.

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By Tessa R. Salazar
Inquirer

WAS it just coincidence that as the Inquirer flashed the news about climate change on its banner page, its Motoring section had in its possession (for a couple of days, at least) two hybrid cars from two of the world’s trailblazers in hybrid power technology?

Maybe there has been, indeed, an ultimate purpose for endeavors that would, at first, seem meaningless and a waste of time. Take, for example, our effort to drive these two hybrid cars (a Toyota Prius and a Honda Civic with Integrated Motor Assist) through some of the most congested locations in Metro Manila at the worst possible driving times (payday Friday night and Saturday afternoon).

Thus, the 1.5-liter Prius (a second-generation test unit) and the 2006 Civic 1.3 i-DSi with IMA were virtually inseparable for two days, driven in identical routes and lanes, loaded up at the same fuel stations and subjected to the same traffic situations.

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By Aida Sevilla-Mendoza
Inquirer

THE 4TH Car of the Year (Coty) Philippines Awards program, which was held at the Rockwell Tent in Makati last Thursday, established quite a few firsts.

It was the first time that: a European brand won the big trophy. The 2007 Car of the Year, the Volvo C30 (shown in photo) is a sports coupe that aced the Luxury Subcompact category versus the BMW 120i and the Mercedes-Benz B160.

What’s more, the Swedish carmaker outshone its German rivals two more times when the Volvo S60 T5 won the Executive Car of the Year Award and the Volvo S80 2.5L topped the Luxury Car category.

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By Tessa R. Salazar
Inquirer

HE isn’t just swift. He’s precise. And wouldn’t we wish we were a bit just like him in our everyday struggles in the chaotic streets of Metro Manila.

His name, fittingly so, is Russ Swift, and he is a world-class precision driver and Guinness record holder. Russ can execute the tightest J turns and parallel park in the blink of an eye. He can spin a car into a parking space just 33 cm longer than the vehicle.

At the Honda Automobile R&D center in Tochigi, each of the automotive writers present didn’t dare do a Swift-like parking maneuver. Instead, they did somewhat the opposite: park a vehicle equipped with a park assist system with computer-assisted steering and voice guidance, which effectively takes the guesswork out of parking.

Parallel-assist parking

Here’s how the “spoon-fed” parallel-assist parking works. Stop on the nose of the parked rear vehicle when it is aligned with the indicator on the left front door lining. Then turn on the parallel-assist switch.

The driver moves the car slowly forward until the voice guide asks him or her to stop the car.

While backing, the driver is asked to keep the position of the steering wheel. The voice guide will tell the driver when to stop. He or she is then asked to turn the steering wheel into the center position to make the precise position in backing the car. Voila!

This same program also does reverse parking. And this does away with an expensive rear monitor. Such technologies have been at use already in many Honda cars in Japan. This system would not be introduced in the Philippines in the near future.

Glow in the dark

Though it does look like a ghost glowing in the dark, it’s actually a living, breathing pedestrian reflected in front of a car in the dead of night. By reflecting images obtained from two far infrared cameras positioned in the lower section of the front bumper in the heads up display, this visibility safety system introduced in the Japanese car Legend in 2004 supports the driver’s night-time vision. When the system detects pedestrians, it cautions the driver via an audio warning and visual enhancement frame.

Journalists were then brought to the world’s first indoor, omni-directional real-world crash test facility in the Tochigi R&D center that Honda built in 2000.

Here, scribes were able to witness an actual head-on collision between a CR-V and an Accord (complete with crash test dummies) at 60 kph. Ugh! Even for crash-test dummies, the postcrash details are quite gory but suffice to say, based on the tests, the occupants will survive albeit with some injuries. One crash was enough, though. The facility also conducts collision tests between vehicles at various angles, in addition to fixed barrier tests.

Crash dummy

Honda has even developed a pedestrian crash dummy that reproduces the kinetics of the human body during car-to-pedestrian collisions to identify the parts of the car body most often involved in the infliction of injuries.

And we have to thank this hapless dummy for making it possible for the carmaker to introduce recent safety designs such as the pop-up hood and the pedestrian injury reduction body to reduce head injuries during collisions.

Actuators “pop up” the rear portion of the engine hood at approximately 10 cm when three sensors located in the front bumper and a vehicle speed sensor determine a collision with a pedestrian has occurred. This provides a space between the rigid engine components and the hood, reducing head injuries to pedestrians. Again, this technology had been first incorporated in the Legend that is being sold in Europe.

Bikers’ airbags

Motorcyclists plunging face first into airbags? Sounds loony, but it may help save countless lives. And yes, Honda is taking this seriously and has developed the world’s first airbag system for mass production in motorcycles, and can help lessen the severity of head injuries caused by motorcycle frontal collisions.

Airbag-equipped motorcycles have been on sale in the United States since September 2006, in Europe in October 2006 and in Japan in June 2007.

By Tessa R. Salazar
Inquirer

TOKYO, Japan–If it moves, we’ll build a better one.

That, in a nutshell, seems to be what Honda is keen on doing in the near (and not-so-near) future. Takeo Fukui, president and CEO of Honda, in a 15-minute interview with members of the Philippine motoring media, revealed the carmaker’s plans on not limiting itself to two- and four-wheeled contraptions.

After coming out with such environmental vehicles such as the Civic 2.0GL, Stream, Partner 4WD, the CR-V, Elysion Prestige and Crossroad models in 2007, which Honda claims have all attained fuel-efficiency ratings mandated in its 2011 standards, Fukui says Honda is now developing a jet engine, and more Asimo-like household robots.

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