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Fernando Alonso denies giving McLaren a Honda-or-me ultimatum

MONZA, Italy — Fernando Alonso has denied telling McLaren to choose between him and Honda as the Spaniard considers his future with the Formula One team. The two-time world champion also dismissed media speculation that he retired from last weekend's Belgian Grand Prix without there being anything technically wrong with his car's power unit. Some reports this week suggested that Alonso had run out of patience after three years of unreliable and under-powered engines and had told McLaren he would leave if it stayed with Honda. "Absolutely not true," the Spaniard, who won his titles with Renault more than a decade ago, told reporters at the Italian Grand Prix on Thursday. "I have absolutely not decided. More than anything I'm not bigger than a team," added the 36-year-old, who has said he will decide his future in September. His current contract expires at the end of the season. McLaren has sounded out Renault and has also indicated it would support Honda moving to Red Bull-owned Toro Rosso. Honda said after Spa that it could find nothing wrong with Alonso's race engine, but the driver expressed surprise that anyone could suggest he had faked a failure. "It seems people forget that I'm racing here for three years, giving my maximum ... I tried to race with a broken rib in Bahrain," he said, explaining that sensors had started to fail and something had felt wrong. "We retired the car, and they checked the whole engine and it seems everything is fine ... so we will try to fit that engine tomorrow (in the second practice). If it blows up, we will change it," he said. Alonso expects to start Sunday's race at the back of the grid due to penalties for further engine changes. Regarding his future, he said he would start discussing with the team and Honda their expectations for next year and look at what was on the table. "I think we do have now some ingredients to be champions," he said. "I think the team did improve a lot in the last three years ... I think we have the talent in the team, we have the facilities. "We just miss (being) more competitive. We will see what the numbers are saying for next year and after that try to make a decision." Asked whether he thought Honda could be competitive in the short term, he replied: "I think you never know. It could be possible. Why not?" Reporting by Alan BaldwinRelated Video:

Honda Smart Home, NJ dealer show the power of solar

Car dealerships are not usually thought of as "green" enterprises. They sell, after all, the fossil fuel-powered vehicles that account for about 18 percent of the CO2 emissions created in the US each year. As demonstrated by Rossi Honda in Vineland, NJ though, it doesn't have to be that way. Sure, the franchise still sells cars - lots of them - but they power the entire operation with sunlight in a way that provides ancillary benefits. The franchise has installed over 900 solar panels to become electric-grid neutral. Owned and operated by the seemingly indefatigable Ron Rossi, the franchise has installed over 900 solar panels to become electric-grid neutral. They aren't plastered across the roof of the showroom and service center, though. Instead, the array is mounted on canopies over his inventory, protecting them from sun, snow, and hail. Costing about $1.3 million to install, Rossi expects the system to save twice that amount in electricity bills over its 25-year life expectancy. Not bad, right? It makes us wonder why all dealerships don't do this. Honda itself recently completed its own solar project. The super-efficient Honda Smart Home is equipped, not only with its own beefy 9.5-kW solar array, but also with a 10-kWh lithium battery-based stationary storage system to buffer the building's electricity. Amongst its many party tricks, the home incorporates a DC-to-DC charging set up that allows the complimentary Fit EV to charge with half the efficiency losses of a typical home charging unit. While the installation is quite impressive and will serve as a "laboratory" of sorts for different groups involved with the project at the University of California, Davis, we can't help but wonder if the Japanese automaker couldn't get a bigger bang for its environmental buck elsewhere. A program, perhaps, to help its many franchise dealers to take up the Rossi challenge and go grid neutral. You can watch Rossi show off his array and other increased efficiency efforts by scrolling below for a pair of videos: one from Honda and one produced by Automotive News. As a bonus, we have time-lapse footage of the Honda Smart Home going up accompanied by press releases discussing both efforts. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party.

Honda China struggling with high-end Accord because Chinese covet German cars, too

It's not particularly unusual to see cheap cars in China, or those with designs stolen from foreign competitors, but increasingly the best-selling vehicles there would be very recognizable to just about any auto enthusiast. There appears to be one fact of life whether looking at car buyers in Sacramento, Stuttgart or Shanghai: People who can afford to buy premium cars often look first at the Germans.
Honda recently thought that it could challenge this perceived wisdom by including a premium Accord in the ninth-generation sedan's Chinese launch last year. The market-exclusive version was priced against the Audi A4. The venture failed, miserably.
According to Automotive News China, sales for the new Accord in China are down 37 percent through May of this year. Honda's overall sales are actually up by about 11 percent there on the strength of smaller, less profitable models. However, the company is still off its forecast 19-percent rise.