Thursday 8th June 2017

Honda NSX EV on the way?

Remember the mad Pikes Peak effort from last year? Honda is keen to bring the tech into a road car...

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Honda, conventional? Well there's the Jazz and CR-V, yes, but scratch the surface and it's hard not to conclude that the company has thrived and occasionally fallen as a result of a dedication to doing things differently. Just look at the Honda Jet. Or ask Fernando Alonso. Or Asimo, the near-human robot. Some you win, some you lose, but the spirit of adventure burns bright.

To think we've only just got this NSX

And see last year's Pikes Peak car as well, an all-electric NSX-derived prototype blessed with four electric motors and a total power output of "around 1000hp". Essentially it doubled up on the hybrid system used in the road car, with an electric motor at each wheel able to accelerate and decelerate as best required independently of one another.

The 4-Motor Acura EV Concept proved as quick as it was awkwardly named, taking third overall on the legendary Race to the Clouds. How quick? 0-124mph in 6.2 seconds quick, albeit with a relatively modest top speed of 155mph. Still, enough to be a long way down the autobahn before the Porsche 918 Spyder you left in your mirrors could do anything about catching up.

Now the engineers behind the project have raised the tantalising prospect of the drivetrain reaching production - potentially in the next-generation NSX, due around 2023, perfectly timed to act as a halo model for Honda's electric car range; expect those cars to roll out from 2018 and grow substantially in coming years.

More interesting than a Jazz Hybrid at least

Inevitably there are many challenges to overcome, not least getting high levels of performance over more extended periods than the nine or so minutes it takes to run up a 20km hillclimb course. Hinting at just how much energy a full-bore run eats up, engineers say the car can run up to 200km at modest pace, but of course owners will want a better balance between range and, er, raciness.

The answer, of course, is in fitting more batteries, but with the car already weighing 1,500kg, and the inevitable bloating when a bespoke race car is turned into a production vehicle, that seems unlikely. And while more batteries means more power, it also means more heat. While it's acceptable to cook car and driver in the heat of competition, customers may not take so kindly to it. Better, say the engineers, to bide time and watch as the energy density of batteries improves.

Bring on 2023!

The final word goes to Sekino Yosuke, head of R&D at Honda. "The technology used on the Pikes Peak car could be interesting," he says. "It is not just a competition car - I would like to make such a car in production, and there are some studies around that. We want our electric cars to be joyful to drive, and it is clear that this proposal, with around 1000hp, is both joyful and uses technology that could one day reach production. We are evaluating what is possible now."

All that raises the prospect of how we would categorise the next-gen NSX. Like a Tesla in Ludicrous mode, or the radical Nio EP9 sports car, it'll have the straight line performance to whistle past supercars in its wake. Throw in the fact that the NSX name demands a level of dynamism too, and we might just have a full-blown Honda hypercar on our hands. It seems anyone who thought electrification would be the end of fun-to-drive cars may have to think again.

Words: Jim Holder

[cib24]

Hmm...I like this. The new NSX isn't a bad package but it needed to have a bit more going for it. This is a nice solution but is 2023 too late given how quickly technology changes every 6 months?