Honda's Recipe For Success With The Ridgeline

It can be said that Honda has the Midas golden touch in America. Its core products are nearly always perennial sales leaders in their respective classes yet they are also often named as the choice for the enthusiast on a budget. The brand rarely strikes out on a product with the Insight and the CR-Z as the only lackluster products unbecoming of the brand's portfolio. Honda immediately fixed up its latest Civic when it arrived to a poor critical reception. For all of its success Honda however is a stubborn brand often unwilling to join the masses and preferring to go its own way infamously eschewing V8s and body-on-frame trucks. The Ridgeline's lackluster sales can certainly be attributed to its unique unibody design and Honda's complete reluctance to update the model. There is some method to Honda's madness with the Ridgeline as it is probably harder for an "import" brand to succeed in the pickup segment than it is for a domestic brand in the compact and midsize sedan segments*. In both cases the factors at play go far beyond just the quality of the product. Honda found out the hard way what it is like to lure full size and lifestyle buyers with a mid size sized unibody truck with full size ambitions. Nevertheless Honda isn't giving up as it is all but ready to unveil its long overdue second generation Ridgeline at the Chicago autoshow. Here is a recipe that Honda must follow to make the second generation worthwhile.

• Aesthetics: From its silhouette teaser it looks like Honda is giving the Ridgeline conventional pickup styling and bed albeit with a car like hood. The Ridgeline's unique design was quite off-putting to many as Honda tried to hard to give it character. Pickups are supposed to be bold but in this case Honda is probably better off sticking to convention.
• Towing: Honda has to give the Ridgeline a respectable towing number. Towing one-upmanship is where the battle is fought for ultimate bragging rights. The Ridgeline's 5,000 pound towing figure is pathetic. A unibody setup is not ideal for towing but it's a myth that it can't as SUV's such as the Mercedes GL, Porsche Cayenne and Volkswagen Touareg are all rated to tow 7,500 pounds or more. Matching that number will still place the Ridgeline behind full size pickups but ahead of most mid size competition.
• Power: Likewise Honda has to give the Ridgeline some horsepower to play with. In a world where the Chevy Colorado offers 305 horsepower and 269 lb-ft of torque, the current 250/253 Pilot setup won't cut it. A turbo V6 setup would be ideal but it's wishful thinking at this point as Honda is just discovering what turbos are. Reaching into Acura's past and bringing back the old MDX 3.7 liter V6 would be a wise decision good for 300 horsepower and 270 lb-ft of torque. In reality the 3.5 Earthdreams V6 will likely be the powerplant of choice with not much more than 270 horsepower and 250 lb-ft of torque placing the Ridgeline in a hole to start out. A six speed auto is a given but the competition is moving on up to 8 and beyond.
• Fuel Economy: Gas is cheap once again but pickup fuel economy has become a bragging rights arena over the past few years. The Ridgeline will absolutely need to match or exceed the rear wheel drive benchmark numbers from the full size category. Sure it will have standard all wheel drive but no one is buying a front wheel drive pickup and you can't explain in a 30 second ad that the numbers Ford, Chevy and Ram are bragging about aren't quite comparable. EPA figures of 18/26 are a must to hit for Honda and are quite achievable given that the Ridgeline shouldn't be too far off behind the Pilot. In turn there is no reason why the Pilot should do any worse than MDX's impressive 18/27 rating and perhaps better it with more development and a simpler all wheel drive system. 

*Toyota is continuing to compete directly with its Tundra but Nissan is acknowledging it can't compete directly. Enter the Titan XD, a unique pickup that is almost in between half tons and HD models with a standard diesel V8. Call it the 200/2000 model to give it a chance against the established makes.

The Five Most Influential Cars of the Past Decade

A lot can happen in a decade in the world of sports, politics, art, technology and life in general. The same can also be said about the auto industry. Aside from the Volvo XC90, every surviving model has gone through at least one complete generation and some are on their third. With that in mind let's take a look at five models over the past decade that have had the greatest impact on the industry through their design or technology. The list is in chronological order to avoid picking favorites.

2004 Toyota Prius

It wasn't the first hybrid, it wasn't even the first Prius but the second generation Prius was the one that put hybrids on the map and eventually made nearly every automaker produce their own. Even the German brands. The second generation brought about 20% better city and 10% better highway fuel economy, at the time the Prius posted an unrealistic 60 mpg city and 51 highway labels*. Even more importantly the Prius brought a unique shape to the market in a usable size. The first generation Prius had an awkward sedan shape that didn't help its cause. Toyota would commit the same exact mistake a few years later with the Lexus HS hybrid that struggled to sell as well. The second generation Prius didn't make hybrids cool but it made them mainstream relevant. The latest million dollar halo cars from Ferrari, McLaren and Porsche are all... hybrids.

2015 Most Anticipated Road Debuts

There is a certain excitement when you first see that leaked photo or an auto show debut of a brand new model online. It's also exciting when you first see a debut live at an auto show before it hits the road. Nothing compares though to the first you time you spot a brand new car on the road. Here are the top three 2015 models I can't wait to see on the road.

2015 Mercedes-Benz C-Class

All the hype around the CLA has done little to  make me comfortable with its design. I am jut not as excited about it as seemingly everyone else. The S-Class on the other hand is a home run and is fantastic, the C-class promises a sportier version of the S-class for the masses. The only potential downfall is around the C-pillar area that might be too compact to properly develop. Still, all the photos promise a best in class design in the hotly contested entry luxury category.

2015 Ford Mustang

Redesigning a retro inspired design is a supremely difficult task. Ford did a good job with the current generation Mustang but the changes were relatively minor. The 2015 version pushes the boundary much further with a more modern look. Yet it still has enough of that retro look to keep the recent lineage alive.

2015 Ford F-150

The big story here is of course the aluminum, the tech and the F-150's continued quest to remain the best selling vehicle in America. The current F-150 has more than adequate styling for a pickup but the 2015 version looks to dethrone the Ram as the best styled pickup on the market today.

Why People Say and Do Two Completely Different Things and How This Impacts CAFE

In a recent Consumer Reports survey, a whopping 93% of responders said that they would like to see higher fuel economy standards. In fact, 80% support CAFE's plan for a 55 mile per gallon average across all vehicles by 2025. In order to achieve CAFE's goals of 55mpg, 56% of those surveyed say they will  consider a hybrid or an electric vehicle for their next purchase. Even better, 80% said that they would pay more for a fuel efficient vehicle that would save them money in the long run. Such results paint a very rosy picture for the automotive industry as it appears that the public is certainly willing to adopt and pay for new technology to raise their MPG. Unfortunately, in reality the picture is completely different. According to the latest data available only a scant percentage of car buyers actually do buy hybrids, in fact hybrid market share of all cars sold in October was less than 2%. This means that only 4% of those considering a hybrid actually buy a one and everyone else was just pretending. Even accounting for the fact that not every model is available as a hybrid it is hard to explain the enormous discrepancy. Besides, wouldn't someone wanting to buy a hybrid make the sacrifice and buy a Camry hybrid versus an Accord? The fact of the matter is that talk is cheap and when real money comes into play people are reluctant to pony up the dough  to get a hybrid. While buying a hybrid or an electric versus a conventional internal combustion requires actual monetary and vehicular commitments, answering a phone poll does not.  In regards to CAFE, politicians and everyone else must remain skeptical regarding surveys of people's hopes about fuel economy and should instead take a good look at reality.

56% of people say they are considering hybrids for their next purchase

Yet Ford sold over 2.5 times more F series in October than all hybrids combined.

Pickup Sales Fall in April

About a month ago pickup sales were at their highest point in recent memory even with gas passing four dollars a gallon in some places. As expected the trend did not last long and every brand save Toyota saw sales of their full size pickups fall compared to last month. Spurred by high demand for its V6 engines Ford's F-150 led all with 45,435 sales in April, while this was an improvement over a year ago it could not match the previous month's sales. In second place the Chevy Silverado posted its second worst month of the year and was fractionally worse compared to a year ago. Much like the Sierra the Dodge Ram struggled when compared to March but was able to improve upon 2010 sales by around four thousand units. The biggest surprise of the month was certainly the Toyota Tundra that continued to improve its sales for the fourth month this year as it closed its gap to the GMC Sierra. Click the chart below to see pickup sales over the course of this year.

EcoBoost V6 F-150 To Tow More than Competitor V8s

Ford says that its 2011 F-150 equipped with the twin-turbo 3.5 liter EcoBoost V6 will tow up to 11,300 pounds, giving it more towing capacity than even the V8 powered competition. Payload capacity likewise tops the competition with 3,060 pounds. Even though the EcoBoost V6 outshines the competition it is still only the second strongest engine in the 2011 F-150 lineup with 365 horsepower and 420 lb-ft of torque. The top dog engine will be the 6.2 liter V8 that first debuted on the Raptor, it produces 411 horsepower and 434 lb-ft of torque. Also available on the 2011 F-150 is the Mustang sourced 5 liter V8 making 360 horsepower and 380 lb-ft of torque in this application, rounding out the engine lineup is a 3.7 liter V6 with 302 horsepower and 278 lb-ft of torque. Ford is promising the 2011 F-150s to deliver 20% better fuel economy than the 2010 versions. It will be interesting to find out how the different engines compare in fuel economy once the ratings become official.

The EcoBoost appears to be a very enticing proposition on paper, but only time will tell if pickup buyers will take a gamble on a high tech engine format previously not seen in their domain.