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Recharge Wrap-up: 2015 Honda CR-Z now on sale, Daimler and Linde building hydrogen stations in Germany

The 2015 Honda CR-Z hybrid is now available at dealerships, for slightly more money. The CR-Z starts at an MSRP of $20,145 (plus $790 in destination charges), up from the $19,995 price of the 2014 model. For those who don't want to row their own gears with the six-speed manual transmission, the available CVT adds an extra $650 to the price, but also offers better fuel economy, especially in the city. The manual-equipped CR-Z gets 31 mpg city/38 highway/34 combined, while the CVT version is rated at 36/39/37 mpg. The 1.5-liter engine and electric motor provide a combined peak 130 horsepower. The manual CR-Z offers 140 pound-feet of torque, with the CVT version providing 127 pound-feet. Customers can also soup up their new CR-Z with upgrades (including a supercharger) from Honda Performance Development. Learn more in the press release below. Daimler and Linde are teaming up to build hydrogen fueling stations in Germany. The automaker and gases and engineering company, with the help of a few oil and gas companies, plan to install 13 new stations by the end of 2015. The installations precede a push by Daimler to get more fuel cell vehicles on the road. "From 2017, we are planning to bring competitively priced fuel-cell vehicles to market," says Daimler's Herbert Kohler. "So now is the time to build a nationwide fuelling infrastructure." Linde will supply the stations with fully renewable hydrogen. Read more in the press release below. In 1899, an EV set a world landspeed record, and Wired has revisited the story with a nice look back at the "La Jamais Contente" and its driver, Belgian engineer Camille Jenatzy. Jenatzy built an electric car to race in a hillclimb, which he won while clocking a top speed of 17 miles per hour (measured the old-timey way - without radar guns). Just a few weeks later, another man set a landspeed record of 32 miles per hour, beginning a back-and-forth series of setting new records. Then, on April 29, 1899, "The Red Devil," as Jenatzy became known as, surpassed 100 kph (62 mph) when his torpedo-shaped electric car set a record of 65.8 mph. It was powered by two 25-kilowatt electric motors. Read the whole story over at Wired.

Honda may recall up to 1M vehicles for airbag issue, following Toyota's lead

It seems Toyota won't be the only one recalling the faulty Takata airbag inflators for long. Honda insiders in Japan claim that the company is getting close to announcing its own worldwide campaign that would begin before the end of June.
Unnamed sources close to Honda in Japan tell Automotive News that the company is pursuing an internal investigation into possibly affected models and is working with Takata to gather more information. They claim that it could involve even more than the 1.14 million cars worldwide that the automaker covered under the first recall for the problem in April 2013, including 561,000 vehicles in the US.
Toyota jumpstarted this process last week when it recalled over 2 million cars worldwide, including 844,277 in the US. Soon after, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began a preliminary evaluation into the issue following six reported incidents, and started assembling data about potentially affected models from Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Chrysler. NHTSA also began investigating Takata itself.

McLaren and Honda rekindle a winning combination

With the 2014 Formula One World Championship now drawn to a close, all eyes are fixed on next season. And for both McLaren and Honda, that means the dawn of a new era – or hopefully, the return to one bygone. After twenty years running Mercedes engines, McLaren is switching back to Honda next season, rekindling the most successful partnership the once-dominant team has ever had. Immediately after swapping to Honda power in 1988 – and with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost behind the wheel – McLaren entered its winningest era, racking up four consecutive world championships. In the two decades it's spent under Mercedes power since, it won three drivers' titles and one constructors', leaving the relatively brief Honda era as its most successful. It was also the most successful for Honda, which had enjoyed success with Williams and some with Lotus, but far more with McLaren – the likes of which it was never able to recreate. The Japanese automaker that was the first to break into the Euro-centric series left grand prix racing when it left McLaren, and despite returning to fund its own team for the better part of a decade, claimed but one checkered flag before calling it quits again. Whether the new collaboration will return both outfits to the winner's circle remains to be seen, but we're looking forward to finding out. In the meantime, after releasing a couple of images from the video shoot last week, McLaren has put out this minute-and-a-half video clip showing the MP4-29H running a few laps around Silverstone, marking the official start of what could be the second reign of the McLaren-Honda dynasty. News Source: McLaren Motorsports Honda McLaren Racing Vehicles Videos F1 mclaren-honda