2011 Honda Insight Ex Nav on 2040-cars

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2024 Honda Prologue name announced, and an Acura EV follows

Honda is revealing a couple of little nuggets of information about its future EVs today, shedding more light on the partnership between it and GM on electric vehicle technology. The big news is that Honda’s first new EV made in this partnership will be called Prologue, and it will be an SUV produced for the 2024 model year. HondaÂ’s “Prologue” logo is revealed with this news, and a few additional details about the car itself are, too. On the obvious front, Honda says the Prologue will ride on GMÂ’s global EV platform and use GMÂ’s Ultium battery technology. The company is also promising “versatility and driving range on par with our current lineup of rugged SUVs.” “Our first volume Honda BEV will begin our transition to electrification, and the name Honda Prologue signals the role it will play in leading to our zero-emission future,” says Dave Gardner, executive VP of American Honda. “The Prologue will provide our customers with a battery-electric SUV with the excellent functionality and packaging theyÂ’ve come to expect from Honda.” ItÂ’s not just Honda that will join in on the fun, though. An electric Acura SUV was also announced today. Just like the Honda, it will use GMÂ’s electric vehicle platform. A model year for the Acura wasn't promised, but Honda claimed it would be revealed “in the 2024 calendar year.” Any details beyond what you see here are being kept under wraps by Honda. WeÂ’re told to expect more “specific details” to be released over the coming months. Basically, expect a slow drip of information about the Prologue leading up to a full reveal where Honda finally shares all there is to know about the SUV. Looking even further into the future, Honda promises EVs based on an in-house-developed EV platform sometime in the second half of this decade. For now, itÂ’s calling this future platform “e:Architecture.” Ultimately, Honda promises that 100% of its auto sales in North America will be fully electric by 2040. The 2024 Prologue is the brandÂ’s first step toward this ambitious goal. Related video:

Hyundai-Kia claims 'greenest' title from Honda, Big Three still big losers

Let's start with the good news. On average, any new car you buy in the US today will be 43 percent cleaner than any average new car in 1998. Here's some more good news, for Korea anyway, Hyundai-Kia has been named the cleanest automaker in the latest study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which looked at 2013 model year vehicles sold between October 2012 and September 2013 from the top eight automakers (by volume). The bad news? The big three Detroit automakers are, on average, still making the dirtiest cars in the showroom. The big three Detroit automakers are, on average, still making the dirtiest cars in the showroom. The problem for Ford, General Motors and Chrysler lies in their trucks, which sell well but tend to have pretty bad fuel economy (compared to sedans, at least). The UCS calculates its list by averaging "the per-mile emissions for each light-duty vehicle sold by each automaker" and then factors in "the fuel economy, fuel type, and sales volume of each type of vehicle sold by each automaker" and "the upstream global warming emissions from producing and distributing the fuel used by each vehicle, as well as emissions from the vehicles themselves." That all means that, the more trucks you sell, the worse you're gonna do. Then again, the more trucks you sell with 18 mpg, the more you're helping drivers put CO2 into the air, so the UCS is doing a fair comparison of the things that this study is trying to track. More details on the methodology are available on page six of the study PDF. In case you were wondering (we were), UCS did make sure to use the revised mpg numbers for Hyundai and Kia models that were originally overstated. Hyundai has apologized for and fixed those figures and even with the new, corrected numbers, Hyundai's total emissions are dropping at a rate of about three percent a year, enough for it to take the greenest company title for the first time. In fact, this is the first time that an automaker other than Honda has come out on top in the UCS ranking, which has been released six times now, including the first one in 2000 (which looked at 1998 model year data). In 2010, Honda was almost knocked off the winner's perch by both Hyundai and Toyota, but managed to hold on. Chrysler, on the other hand, came in dead last (again) in the ranking of the top eight automakers, snagging the "dirtiest tailpipe" award once (again). Read the UCS' press release below.

Red Bull F1 denied access to Honda engines

There are four engine manufacturers in Formula 1: Ferrari, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, and Renault. Infiniti Red Bull Racing ended its marriage to Renault, got to the altar with Mercedes and then Mercedes backed out, couldn't even agree on a pre-nup with Ferrari, and Honda flat-out said, "No." At the moment that has left the four-time World Champions without an engine for next year, owner Dieter Mateschitz threatening to take his two teams and four cars out of the sport, and F1 honcho Bernie Ecclestone threatening to sue Mateschitz if he does. The Japanese company had turned down the idea because after a first year with some poor performances and a few public sour notes, it wants to get McLaren's cars running properly before it expands its operation. Now it seems some behind-the-scenes action of late has opened up channels between Red Bull and Honda, and the two are at least talking. Honda, though, still says such a deal is highly unlikely at best, and Red Bull says it will have something to say when something is done. It appears that McLaren chief Ron Dennis, however, has vetoed the idea. Ecclestone says Honda made a deal with the FIA that would allow Honda to supply two teams in its second year, but Honda gave Dennis veto rights over who the second team would be. For the same reason that Mercedes backed out and Ferrari only wanted to sell Red Bull year-old engines, Ecclestone says Dennis might view Red Bull as a competitor and doesn't want to risk two more cars getting in front of his own. If that's the case and Red Bull is going to remain in the sport, it might need to hit the flower shop and book a trip to Renault headquarters. Soon. Related Video: