Exclusive Interview With Honda’s Chief Engineer - Part 1: Ultracapacitors

Tetsuya Yokoyama — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:29:03 +0000

Editor’s Note: This is the part one of an interview Tetsuya Yokoyama recently had the opportunity to conduct with Honda R&D Chief Engineer, Mr. Yamamoto at Eco-Products 2008 in Tokyo, Japan. Mr. Yamamoto is greatly involved in the development of Honda’s hybrid technology including the upcoming 2009 Insight.

I’d like to thank all the readers who responded to my previous article with questions I could pose to Mr. Yamamoto. I’d also like to thank InsightCentral.net members for responding to that article too! I really appreciate your input, and apologize for taking so long to write this article.

After talking a bit about Green Options Media, Gas 2.0 and Insight Central, the very first question I asked him was about the possibility of using an ultracapacitor in a future Honda hybrid. More than ten years ago, the Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) power train was first introduced with the J-VX concept and was originally developed with an ultracapacitor instead of NiMH batteries.

Mr. Yamamoto explained that Honda engineers have researched ultracapacitor technology in the past but that the technology, although promising, is still too new and has several challenges to overcome. In the end, Honda decided to go with NiMH batteries on the first generation of Insight in consideration of mass production and quality control.

Green Options » Ultra-Capacitor

Exclusive Interview With Honda’s Chief Engineer - Part 1: Ultracapacitors