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Toyota, Honda, Nissan and more collaborating to increase fuel efficiency

Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Daihatsu have announced an alliance that will see a push to improve fuel economy from both gas-powered and diesel-powered engines by as much as 30 percent before the end of the decade.
The newly assembled Research Association of Automotive Internal Combustion Engines put the roughly $20-million project together, with the Japanese government committing to half the cost while the eight manufacturers will chip in the rest.
According to Automotive News, the automakers will team up and share basic research on internal-combustion engines in a bid to cut costs. Eventually, the results of the research will find its way into a production vehicle, although it's unclear just when we'll see the fruits of this partnership on the road.

Honda releases H2O brand bottled water to promote FCX Clarity

Remember when Hollywood stars Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) and Joshua Jackson (Fringe) took a Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell into Death Valley and "survived" by drinking water from the car's tailpipe? Honda has taken that idea into movie theaters in Australia. The idea, but not fuel cell water itself. Honda has created a bottled water brande called H2O, and it's meant to promote the hydrogen-powered Honda FCX Clarity as part of Honda's "clever thinking" campaign. The headline message, just as it was for Mercedes, is that a hydrogen fuel cell car emits nothing but water vapor, which is actually safe to drink. To give movie fans a hands-on experience, Honda Australia filled a number of Palace Cinemas movie theaters with free disposable bottles of H2O water. Of course, since there are only a handful of FCX Clarity vehicles in the world today and it would take a lot of driving to fill up that many bottles, Honda admits that, "if you're holding a bottle of our specially produced H2O water in your hand right now, you've been drinking plain old spring water. If you want to taste the real thing, you'll have to travel to California, Japan or the UK where the FCX is currently available." Of course, why anyone would want to associate themselves with the unending waste that is bottle water, a product that has not proven itself to be any better than good tap water, is beyond us. But that's what Honda is doing, as you can see in the promotional video about the stunt below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Honda planning a second Vezel for developing markets

The new Honda Vezel was designed as a global product. Unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show in November, the compact crossover is already going on sale in Japan, will soon reach Europe and will eventually hit the North American market as well - albeit with a different name and engine lineup. But it won't be sold everywhere.
According to Autocar India, the Vezel was originally earmarked to reach the emerging market on the subcontinent, but the declining value of the rupee has apparently forced Honda to rethink its strategy. Instead, the Japanese automaker is now expected to develop a second compact crossover - one more cost-effective to produce locally - for sale in India and other, nearby developing markets.
The new model would be based on the Brio, a hatchback that's smaller than the Fit (on which the Vezel is based) and built in India, Thailand and Indonesia. Honda has already enlarged the Brio's platform to create the Amaze sedan and Mobilio minivan. Building a crossover on the same platform would reportedly require some re-engineering - particularly around the wheel wells - but would apparently still be more cost-effective than importing the Vezel.