Automotive Sweden met with President and Director of Honda R&D Co., Ltd. Tomohiko Kawanabe, who related his and Honda's views on the future.

We begin our talk with a discussion on urbanization and the fact that more than half of the earth's population now live in metropolitan areas. Tomohiko Kawanabe ("TK") says that Honda, against a backdrop of the Tokyo traffic situation, is developing a real time system in which Honda vehicles automatically report speed and traffic situations. A central server compiles the information and then provides route advice for the vehicles connected to the system. The system, which is called "City Drive", will become increasingly more effective as more vehicles connect to it.

Our conversation moves to cars, emissions and different power sources. Honda is confident that developments must move toward hydrogen gas-powered systems, fuel cells and electric motors. Before we are ready to take the step into a hydrogen gas society though, developments will continue to aim at making today's combustion engines more efficient. Diesel currently has, at best, a 40% efficiency rate in traffic. With hybrid support, it is possible to reach efficiency rates up to 50%, but it is difficult to go much beyond this. In cold climates, where excess heat is recovered to heat the inside of the car, efficiency rates can rise a bit, but unfortunately still hit a roadblock at about 50%. TK says that Honda sees an umbrella solution in hydrogen gas. A "home energy station" powered by natural gas produces electricity, heat and hydrogen gas. The home gets the electricity and heat and the car gets the hydrogen. These small power stations reach efficiency rates up to 93% when powered by natural gas. The stations are not CO2-free, but they do produce a considerable amount of energy in relation to emissions. Of course hydrogen gas production from sunlight and electrolysis is the end objective, but we don't need to wait for that step - natural gas is a good alternative for hydrogen gas production in the meantime.

Honda is working intensively to make today's combustion engines more efficient, and sees hybrid systems as a way to do this. True hybrid technology means that energy does not need to be "braked" away. Honda puts out the full range of production, from conventional combustion engines to hybrids and electric vehicles with batteries, to test cars that run on hydrogen gas/fuel cells/electric motors.

The battery is the Achilles heel for electric vehicles and TK does not believe there will be any major breakthroughs or new technologies. He compares it with initiatives to reduce exhaust emissions from cars. TK has worked for twenty years with measures to reduce exhaust emissions, and this has been a time-demanding and resource-intensive step-by-step project. "The same goes for the battery, where we'll be seeing gradual improvements over a long period of time. But battery development is really just an intermediate step toward the hydrogen gas system," he finishes.
 
Honda is an exciting company with a lot of visions for the future in a number of different areas. It's not common to find a company representative with such a clear and confident statement on the future as Honda's R&D Director: Hydrogen gas is the future.