siegen

It's a modern interpretation of a classic Buick design cue. You wouldn't want a plain, slab side... like so many cars have nowadays... would you?

Yes yes, I understand that it is a design idea pulled from a previous Buick. It does need a side crease, but I think a single flowing crease would be much more fitting. This side crease is very reminiscent of the old Tiburon. It doesn't look the same, and it is perhaps pulled off better, but it still reminds me of two opposing side crease design used on that vehicle.

These cues are better integrated and much more tasteful than that hideous new Acura grille or that disfigured wheel arch on the front fender of the upcoming 2009 Acura TL. Although I thought the overall shape of the TL was attractive, the poorly executed details (grille and fender arch, not to mention the C-pillar fake out) ruined the car for me.

On the contrary, I feel that this side crease looks just as or more out of place than the Acura grille and wheel arch on the new TL. I want to see more real-world shots of a production model, but I don't think my opinion will change. Don't get me wrong, I have a problem with the front fender flare and the grille on the TL, but this side crease is just as bad.

The TL looks basically like the old one but with a big chrome shield on the front. The styling exercises that Acura is doing now are dubious at best and fatal at worst. The new vehicles look too much like the old ones with lots of bling tacked on. My '54/'55 Studebaker update comparison stands.

The CTS is already selling very well even in a severely slumping economy.

That's funny, the CTS looks basically like the old one with a different grille. I bet a typical non-car person would not even be able to tell the two apart from the rear 3/4 view. Honestly, when I first saw it, I had to look it up to see if it was an MMC or actually a FMC.

But that's ok, it's good that GM didn't screw up a good thing.

The only thing on the new TL that even vaguely resembles the old model are the head lights.

I think they could have done a much better job on the rear. But I am glad they are offering a wagon, I'd like to see more of wagons and less crossovers.

This will have a much harder time standing up to the new CTS than the old one could to the old CTS. The new CTS has improved dramatically and has upped the style quotient.

The new TL is a very large advancement over the old, which was already a great car. I have a feeling the opposite of what you say will be true.

Differences in exterior styling between the CTS new and old is not that dramatic.

As I understand it, the Volt's mission will be to be treated as solely an electric vehicle. More than 50% of the people in Toronto live in highrises or apartments. Most of those people will never be able to plug in their vehicle. The infrastructure (not to mention the 'billing') to plug in your vehicle at work, for example, is going to be years off. For those people, the Volt will be of little use.

However, for the rest of the people, who live in single family dwellings (or even condos, because I would imagine that when demand warrants, a lot of condos could be retrofited for individual, metered electrical hook up in the underground garage), electrical range will be everything and recharge times not so important. For those people, the ability to drive to and from work, do a couple errands and then recharge the batteries over night (when hydro rates are cheaper) will be a big buying feature.

We covered this in a different thread, but initial reports were that GM wanted a 600 mile range for the Volt when running on gasoline/electric. That is a lofty but unnecessary goal. Nearly all gasoline vehicles go half that on a full tank, so if the Volt can run 350 miles on the combination of gas/electric, that would be more than enough.

If I recall, the Volt's combined range had been lowered to a more realistic 350~ range.

I for one would probably be too lazy to plug in my car every night and then unplug it every morning. What a hassle! When I get home from work, I literally spring from my car and the first thing to go is the pants. Likewise, in the morning I am tired and cranky. I would probably drive away with the plug still attached more than a few times.

Yes, but does that make the battery any better for actual driving? If you have a 20 mile drive to work and 20 mile drive home, you're using pretty much no fuel in the Volt. If the Honda battery can be recharged in an hour to say the Volt's 4 hours (this is not at all based on anything, just made up) but it can only go 20 miles without fuel, and there is no place to recharge while at work, then it certainly isn't better for someone with a 40 mile round-trip each day. If it's someone like a stay-at-home mom who runs lots of errands, I could see it being better to have shorter range and less recharge time. Go get groceries, come back, an hour later go pick up the kids, then go out to dinner a couple hours later, etc etc., whereas perhaps the Volt wouldn't have time to recharge (again, I have no idea how much time it takes either to recharge, though. Also don't have any idea of the range of the Volt vs. Honda).

Honda still hasn't announced any plans to make a plug-in hybrid. As far as I can tell the Li-Ion batteries will be for their current hybrids, as they have designed them to accept Li-Ion batteries when they become economically feasible. The rapid charging (from regen braking and engine) and fast discharging (for more power to the electric motor) will allow them to use more electric assist during acceleration and to use IMA on larger vehicles.

Beats the hell out of the SC.

Nice overhang.

I think GM and Honda have been teaming up. Ever since the 3.0l V6 showed up in the Vue, something has been up.

Probably not. Just because they are both working on procuring Li-Ion batteries for hybrid vehicles at the same time does not indicate they're collaborating. For the Vue Redline, GM may not have had an engine suitable for that application. That was before GM developed the 3.6 DI engine after all.

So is this battery more or less the same as the Volt's, or does it have improvements vs. the Volt's? Or do we even know?

From the article, it indicates they are taking a different route than other Li-Ion adopters. Honda wants to focus on charge and discharge times for the batteries, so the batteries can provide more power quickly and then recharge quickly as well.

>>"The main thing I didn't like on the concept was the side crease, which is horribly cheap looking. "<<

How are you coping with the accord's horribly cheap looking side crease?? Or are you referring to that as a scrape or dent?

The Accord has a normal TL-inspired side crease, and looks fine. This side crease, even on the nice looking concept, looks poor IMHO. It hurts the overall design more than it helps and really feels like an afterthought.

The 2.7 liter 4-cylinder in the Highlander is interesting. Sounds like an ok move right now, but I wonder how it will drive. A 2.7L 4-cylinder tied to the hybrid sounds like a better solution than the V6 hybrid they have right now though.

i think I need something in that picture to set scale... it looks flipping huge!

The orange/yellow part is the IMA motor, which is sandwiched between the normal-sized gasoline engine and CVT transmission.

Honda Awaiting New "Super" Lithium-Ion Battery for Next-Generation Hybrids

Full article at Edmunds

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- Honda Motor Co. is preparing for an all-new, advanced lithium-ion battery that will allow its engineers to extend Honda's Integrated Motor Assist hybrid-electric technology to larger vehicles, a senior company executive told Green Car Advisor during an annual auto-industry conference frequented by heavy-hitters from carmakers' management ranks.

John German, American Honda's manager of environmental and energy analysis, said the coming lithium-ion battery formula -- the developer of which he wouldn't name -- does not enjoy extra capacity compared with known lithium-ion characteristics. Instead, the new chemistry is targeted at allowing the batteries to charge much more quickly.

This, in turn, will allow for an increased amount of battery capacity that can be assigned to actually powering the motor. And more power means the IMA system can be employed for larger, heavier vehicles.

German says the new butt-kicker lithium-ion chemistry should be ready in about the same timeframe as GM's lithium-ion-dependent Chevrolet Volt "extended-range" electric vehicle, the car that put lithium-ion development on the hot seat.

German told Green Car Advisor, that he thinks Toyota invested in the wrong technology by opting for the "full" hybrid design instead of Honda's IMA mild hybrid system. "We get 80 percent of the (full-hybrid) benefit at 60 percent of the cost," German insists.

Truthfully man I have to say that I love Acura and went the to Acura dealer first. After a drive in the MDX I thought it was neat, we even took it home but... for grins we tried out the new Pilot. Sure, the interior design isn't quite as nice but, it IS STILL very nice. Handling was similar unless you pushed it hard into corners (the advantage of SH-AWD) but, other than that even the suspension setups are the EXACT same UNLESS you spare for the MDX Sport which features active dampers to change ride and handeling characteristics but, even still... the last MDX was every bit a cut above the Pilot offering feature you just could not get on the pilot (i.e. nav until the '06 model change). I LOVE Acura but... even the Acura dealer acknowledged the Pilot had it beat this year. Apparently though, there is an MCE next year for the MDX that should fix all of the "deficiencies" I mentioned. Oh and... the TSX desiel is real, apparently it was shown to the dealers when they previewed the new TL.

The new Pilot sounds like a pretty big improvement over the old.

If I may ask, are you keeping your TSX or trading it in for a crossover? I may be purchasing an '09 or '10 TSX soon, depending on if rumors of a V6 materialize. I may try out the diesel too, not sure if I'll like it.

I'll just get an Ariel Atom with Civic Type-R engine.

"Results not typical"

lol

A couple of good ones in there. I wonder if the guy with the 2 million mile truck was still on the original engine and transmission.

The Prius is a poor solution for vast majority of buyers, even for most of the people that bought one. Like I noted in another post, they could've bought a Cobalt for half the money, and would've taken 20 years to recoupe the cost difference... and that's driving 20k miles a year! But that's shot out of the water because in 20yrs you be replaceing the Prius's batteries more than once.

The Prius is equipped better than the Cobalt isn't it? Did you compare equally equipped models?

Edmunds recently did a comparo between the Prius and Fit (click here) and gave the Fit the win. The Fit is smaller on the outside but only suffers in rear leg room on the inside by a few inches, and has much more cargo capacity. Edmunds compared the base Fit though, which I do not agree with, they should have compared a Fit Sport which would have been equipped a little better and closer to the Prius.

I have compared both. We are in the market for either of them. As a current owner of a TSX, I was impressed by the difference in quality between an Accord similarly equiped and an Acura. However, this time the Pilot stacks up better if you remove design from the equation. Sincerely, the rear interior of the Acura is covered with rat fur cloth while the Pilot recieves carpet and more tasteful and usefull plastic. The rear of an MDX has 2 seats, Pilot 3. No vents for rear occupants in the Acura. The wood-like material on the dash is plastic unless you opt for the sport model then you recive aluminum only on the center stack and cup holder. The touring model has acoustical glass on sound deadening just like the MDX. The Pilot recieves rear sunshades which the MDX does not offer. The MDX does not feature a 112V outlet in the center console, the Pilot does. The Acura does not feature front park assist the Pilot does. Power liftgate is not standard however, Pilot Touring it is. Upper hatch does not open on the MDX, Pilot it does. Luggage rack is not standard on MDX, Pilot it is. The list of features that the MDX does have that the Pilot doesn't is this (exclud. style):

Power tilt and telescope wheel;

HID Lo-Beams;

XM NavTraffic;

300HP 3.7L;

SH-AWD;

That is it. I love Acura and I love the dealership experience BUT this time Honda cheapened up the MDX. You should be able to match or beat every feature on the Acura for the $7-$9k premium. Don't get me wrong, I hope Honda fixes it and the guy at the Acura dealership swears that they are.

Luxury cars always cost more than they are economically worth when compared to mainstream cars. If you are comparing which makes more economic or practical sense, the non-luxury brand always wins. The MDX offers more features than you're giving it credit for, but what it really comes down to is if you are willing to spend more for a luxury vehicle knowing that you are paying more for the same number of features.

You can list "300HP V6" and "SH-AWD" as features, but it's far more than that. Does the Pilot deliver even close to the driving experience of the MDX? If these things don't matter to you, and it sounds like they don't, then the Pilot is the obvious choice. The MDX was not tuned on the Nürburgring so it could match the Pilot in features and price.

What's more is that the current MDX is trumped in all ways but two by the NG Pilot. The MDX has 300HP and AWD. That's it. Every other way the Pilot is superior. If you can live with the looks, lack of HID's, and NavTraffic, the Pilot Touring is the best deal going.

The MDX has more luxury features, a more powerful engine, luxurious interior, and sh-awd. You could say the Malibu is better than the CTS because the CTS only has power, RWD, and luxury features going for it. The same can be said about any luxury vs mainstream comparison.

Edit: You also don't get Acura total care service with the Pilot, or the ELS surround sound system.

It seems absurd to pay $500, even $100 for a trivial 1 mpg increase.

Well if the cost is worked into payments or a lease, it becomes barely noticeable.

The last model was real aluminum. I would assume this model is too.

I have been hearing talk that it is real aluminum, but I haven't been able to confirm it or see it in writing in a review yet.

How about GM just make the full size SUV's and Trucks get 1/1 mpg better across the board, and not bother with the badge?

Then have a press release saying that for 2009 they have performed various enhancements to improve mileage by 1/1 on their line of SUV/Trucks, without any extra costs or changes to the customer. They could tout their commitment to continually improving efficiency, rather than silly marketing gimmicks.

"Signed up" perhaps isn't the best word, more like "interested in".

is this thing true dvd-audio capable?

Yes, it is true 5.1 channel DVD-audio capable. The current TL also has 5.1 DVD-Audio and the ELS sound system standard.