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Honda Civic Type R Concept to hatch in Geneva

As if the Geneva Motor Show isn't exciting enough, now we have word that a new version of a certain iconic Japanese hot hatch will make an appearance there in a few weeks time. Honda has announced that its Civic Type R Concept will be revealed during the show's media days, which take place March 4 and 5.
Since this is Honda we're talking about, we should point out that the "Concept" part of the Civic Type R's name is usually a bit of a misnomer. For the past few years, the Japanese automaker has made a habit of attaching "Concept" to the end of several near-production models in the name of drumming up auto show excitement (see Exhibits A, B, C, D and E). So really, this is almost certainly the next Civic Type R, a car we've kind of already driven.
The latter car was a "development" model, but we aren't expecting a lot to change between it and the production model. As previously reported, a 2.0-liter, turbocharged engine should deliver north of 280 horsepower to the front wheels via a six-speed gearbox. Have a look up top at the sole image of the hot Civic released by Honda, and then scroll down for the official press release.

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 accused of not reporting all airbag problems

The Takata airbag recall that has afflicted a number of automakers may have just taken a very bad turn for Honda, which has already recalled over one million vehicles. Clarence Ditlow and the Center for Auto Safety have accused the Japanese manufacturer of failing to report two "injury-and-death" incidents. To determine just what happened, the company has initiated a third-party audit.
According to Bloomberg, CAS claims Honda failed to report fatalities in 2009 and 2013, a point Honda doesn't seem to contest, indicating that it didn't report so-called "verbal claims."
"It is our understanding that some manufacturers choose to include these types of verbal claims, and that these constitute the majority of the injury-and-death claims that they report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration," the company told Bloomberg via email. "We believe this practice accounts for the vast majority of the difference between the total number of injury-and-death claims reported by Honda compared to certain other manufacturers."