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Honda spinning off Acura as stand-alone division in bid to wake up brand

Every major automaker has a different way of relating between its various divisions and brands. At Volkswagen, for example, the individual brands seem to operate with a large degree of autonomy. Under the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the two units share a common chief executive, but little else. The relationship between Honda and its luxury division Acura has always been rather close, but that's all about to change.
American Honda Motor Company has always handled sales and marketing in the North American market for both the Honda and Acura divisions, but new reorganization plans call for the two units to be separated under their own direction. Leading the Acura division will be Michael Accavitti, who moves into the position from his role as Senior Vice President for Auto Operations at American Honda. The Honda division will meanwhile be taken over by the current head of Acura sales, Jeff Conrad.
Both will report to John Mendel, the current executive vice president of the Automobile Sales Division that is being rebranded as the American Honda Auto Division. Unlike rivals Lexus and Infiniti - two brands that Acura beat to the market - Honda barely markets its luxury brand outside of North America. Its overseas presence is felt only in China, though we've yet to receive word on how the reorganization might effect that market - or for that matter, any potential of expanding into others.

Honda, Chevy reveal low-drag speedway aero for Indy 500

As the two automakers currently participating in the IndyCar Series, both Chevy and Honda were invited this year not only to provide engines to the teams on the starting grid, but to develop their own aerodynamics packages as well. Both revealed their designs for the road-course races a few months ago, but with the Indy 500 approaching at break-neck speed, they've now unleashed their aero approaches for speedways. Both are based on the Dallara DW12 chassis introduced to the series a couple of years ago, but sacrifice some of their downforce at the altar of speed. And you can tell as much from looking at them: both Honda (above) and Chevy (below) have streamlined their designs, with single-plane front wings, lower-profile rear wings and fewer winglets on the body and around the wheels in between. The idea is to allow the cars to reach higher top speeds with less drag, while offering the necessary amount of downforce for the banked turns. With the four opening road-course rounds complete, teams using either automaker's equipment will keep the existing aero kits on their cars for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis on the infield course next week, then switch to the speedway package for the Indianapolis 500 later this month. Then it'll be back and forth for the rest of the season as the circus switches between road courses and speedways. Honda Unveils 2015 IndyCar Super Speedway Aero Kit Apr 30, 2015 - SPEEDWAY, Indiana - To be used at the Indianapolis 500 - Manufacturer seeking 11th Indianapolis 500 victory since 2004 - First public running to take place Sunday at Indianapolis Honda today debuted the "Super Speedway" aero kit of aerodynamic upgrades and components its teams will use at this year's 99th running of the Indianapolis 500. The Honda Super Speedway Aero Kit, produced by Honda Performance Development, Honda's racing arm in North America, includes a variety of individual aerodynamic components fitted to the existing Honda-powered Dallara Indy car chassis. All are intended to give Honda's six Indy car teams – encompassing a potential 17 '500' entrants - the ability to maximize performance at the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval and other large ovals ( over one mile in length) on the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series schedule. "We're excited to unveil our Super Speedway aero kit, the newest element in this era of enhanced manufacturer competition in the Verizon IndyCar Series," said Art St. Cyr, president of HPD.

Hyundai-Kia claims 'greenest' title from Honda, Big Three still big losers

Let's start with the good news. On average, any new car you buy in the US today will be 43 percent cleaner than any average new car in 1998. Here's some more good news, for Korea anyway, Hyundai-Kia has been named the cleanest automaker in the latest study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which looked at 2013 model year vehicles sold between October 2012 and September 2013 from the top eight automakers (by volume). The bad news? The big three Detroit automakers are, on average, still making the dirtiest cars in the showroom. The big three Detroit automakers are, on average, still making the dirtiest cars in the showroom. The problem for Ford, General Motors and Chrysler lies in their trucks, which sell well but tend to have pretty bad fuel economy (compared to sedans, at least). The UCS calculates its list by averaging "the per-mile emissions for each light-duty vehicle sold by each automaker" and then factors in "the fuel economy, fuel type, and sales volume of each type of vehicle sold by each automaker" and "the upstream global warming emissions from producing and distributing the fuel used by each vehicle, as well as emissions from the vehicles themselves." That all means that, the more trucks you sell, the worse you're gonna do. Then again, the more trucks you sell with 18 mpg, the more you're helping drivers put CO2 into the air, so the UCS is doing a fair comparison of the things that this study is trying to track. More details on the methodology are available on page six of the study PDF. In case you were wondering (we were), UCS did make sure to use the revised mpg numbers for Hyundai and Kia models that were originally overstated. Hyundai has apologized for and fixed those figures and even with the new, corrected numbers, Hyundai's total emissions are dropping at a rate of about three percent a year, enough for it to take the greenest company title for the first time. In fact, this is the first time that an automaker other than Honda has come out on top in the UCS ranking, which has been released six times now, including the first one in 2000 (which looked at 1998 model year data). In 2010, Honda was almost knocked off the winner's perch by both Hyundai and Toyota, but managed to hold on. Chrysler, on the other hand, came in dead last (again) in the ranking of the top eight automakers, snagging the "dirtiest tailpipe" award once (again). Read the UCS' press release below.