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Acura NSX bodywork to be sheathed in zirconium e-coat, fewer paint layers

Automakers make halo cars to drum up excitement and show off what they can do, but there's more to it than that. Advanced platforms allow a company's engineers to experiment with all sorts of technologies. And in the case of the upcoming new Acura NSX, that includes new paint processes.
Speaking with Autoline in this video interview, Honda's North American Senior VP Jon Minto talked about an innovative zirconium e-coat which it's applying to the new NSX. Unlike some experimental paints developed for Formula One, however, this coating is not designed to minimize drag or enhance cooling: it's designed to be more environmentally friendly.
It's one of a few measures which Honda is implementing on the NSX before expanding it to more accessible models, along with another process that uses fewer coats to reduce energy consumption by 40 percent. Watch the interview with Autoline host John McElroy right here.

Honda tweaks ad after catching ire from Detroit protesters [w/video]

Honda has released a revised version of its youth-focused Today is Pretty Great commercial because the original used footage of Detroit bankruptcy protesters in front of the Theodore Levin US Courthouse. The protesters felt that Honda was making fun of their plight. The new version cuts out the protestors and replaces them with a close-up of a bankruptcy court sign. Honda says that it never intended to tie the ad to Detroit and made the change to avoid that appearance.
"The slight change we made to the commercial simply reflects our desire to remove anything that would get in the way our uplifting message," said Honda spokesman Steve Kinkade in a statement to The Detroit News.
Honda's footage of the protestors lasted about one second in the original ad. It blurred the protestors' faces, and the name of the courthouse was not visible. The company said that the footage was meant to represent any courthouse in the US. Both versions have about five seconds of negative imagery at the beginning before transitioning to young people saying that there are some great things about today too.

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.