Eleven cars named Top Safety Picks

Arlington, Virginia - The U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has named eleven vehicles as new Top Safety Picks. To qualify, vehicles must earn the highest rating of "good" in the Institute's front, side and rear tests, and be equipped with electronic stability control (ESC)."Criteria to win are tough because Top Safety Pick is intended to drive continued improvements such as good crash test ratings and rapid addition of electronic stability control, which is standard equipment on nine of the new eleven winners," said IIHS president Adrian Lund. "Recognizing vehicles at the head of the class for safety helps consumers distinguish the best overall choices without having to sort through multiple test results."The winners, by vehicle class (all are model-year 2009 unless otherwise noted):Small cars: Honda Civic (with optional ESC), Mitsubishi Lancer (with optional ESC), Volkswagen Rabbit, and 2008-2009 Scion xB (not sold in Canada)Midsize cars: Volkswagen Jetta, Volkswagen Passat Large luxury car: Lincoln MKS Midsize SUVs: Ford Flex, Honda Pilot Small pickup: Toyota Tacoma Midsize convertible: Volkswagen Eos

Honda opens new engine plant in Ontario

Alliston, Ontario - Honda of Canada Manufacturing officially opened its new engine plant in Alliston, Ontario yesterday. The $154 million plant will produce 200,000 four-cylinder engines annually for Civic production.The new plant is designed with a target of zero waste-to-landfill, the same as the two nearby Honda assembly plants, and the engines will be made from 100 per cent recycled aluminum, much of which is sourced from southern Ontario. The aluminum is provided by MAPCAN, an adjacent Honda-related company, which provides the aluminum directly in molten form. Guests at the ceremony included Satoshi Aoki, Chairman of Honda Motor; Honda Canada president and CEO Manabu Nishimae; Honda Canada Motor president Ko Katayama; and Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty.“I am very pleased to represent global Honda today as we continue to expand our partnership with the people of Canada,” Aoki said. “This strong relationship began 22 years ago, in 1986, when we built just 526 units of Honda Accord. Today were are assembling 390,000 vehicles annually, and recently reached 4.8 million units of production here in Alliston. And now we will once again strengthen our commitment through our new engine plant investment.”Production is expected to reach 800 engines daily by mid-2009. The plant will employ approximately 340 people when it reaches full capacity each year.

Nissan crash avoidance inspired by bees

Nissan will unveil a new crash prevention technology at Japan's CEATEC electronics exhibition that the company said was inspired by bumblebees.. Click image to enlarge Tokyo, Japan - Nissan will unveil a new crash prevention technology at Japan's CEATEC electronics exhibition that the company said was inspired by bumblebees. Researchers at Nissan's Advanced Technology Center said the system is a "strategic hint at how to design the next generation of crash-avoidance systems". Based on joint research with the University of Tokyo, Nissan has built the Biomimetic Car Robot Drive, or BR23C, a robotic micro-car that recreates bee characteristics with the goal of producing a system that prevents collisions altogether. It is part of Nissan's "Safety Shield" concept, based on the idea that cars should help protect people; Nissan said its goal is to halve the number of automobile crash fatalities or serious injuries involving its vehicles by 2015 when compared to 1995."The BR23C robotic car is positioned as the innermost layer of this shield," said Mitsuhiko Yamashita, executive vice-president in charge of research and development. The car is based on an oval-shaped personal space that each bee creates when in flight; crucially, the bee's compound eyes, capable of seeing more than 300 degrees, allows it to fly uninterrupted inside this space. To recreate the function of a compound eye, engineers developed the Laser Range Finder (LRF), which detects obstacles up to 2 metres away within a 180-degree radius in front of the car. The LRF calculates the distance to the obstacles and sends a signal to an on-board microprocessor, which instantly translates it into collision avoidance."The split second it detects an obstacle, the car robot will mimic the movements of a bee and instantly change direction by turning its wheels at right angles or greater to avoid a collision," said Toshiyuki Andou, principal engineer of the project. "The biggest difference to any current system is that the avoidance manoeuvre is totally instinctive. If that was not so, then the car robot would not be able to react fast enough to avoid obstacles. It must react instinctively and instantly because this technology corresponds to the most vulnerable and innermost layer of our Safety Shield, a layer in which a crash is currently considered unavoidable. The whole process must mirror what a bee does to avoid other bees. It must happen within the blink of an eye."

Nissan builds one-millionth vehicle in China

Tokyo, Japan - Nissan Motor Company has announced that cumulative production at its Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Company (DFL PV) has reached one million units. The milestone comes just five years after the company was established. “We’re proud to have produced one million units in only five years,” said Toshiaki Otani, managing director of DFL PV. “This achievement has been possible through the work of dedicated Nissan personnel who have the advantage of being able to build quality products at two state-of-the-art DFL PV plants, the benchmarks for Nissan’s global plants.” The milestone vehicle is an all-new X-Trail, scheduled to reach showrooms in early November and the fourth model to launch from DFL PV this year. The company makes a full line of luxury and midsize sedans, hatchbacks, multi-purpose vehicles and crossovers at two facilities in China, and has also produced its first two exports that will be sold in Egypt through the local Nissan distribution network. Nissan’s total Chinese sales from January to August 2008 were 354,437 units, an increase of 20 per cent versus the prior year. The company has targeted sales of 500,000 units for the Chinese market in 2008