Wards Auto quotes Tom Elliott, executive vice president-American Honda, saying, "If we are to do a hybrid for Acura, and we will in the future - not in the short-term plan - but if we look further down the road, it'll be more the performance-oriented version, probably with an improvement in fuel economy as well, but the primary focus will be on performance. Perhaps it will have all-wheel-drive capability if it didn't already have that.
The new Acura hybrid car will most likely we an all-wheel drive vehicle with several new features as well. Several online message boards have quoted Autoweek as saying the new Acura hybrid car will arrive as the next RL sport-luxury sedan. The car's 200-hp 3.0-liter V6 driving the front wheels gets a torquey 160-hp boost from an electric motor driving the rear wheels. Regenerative braking recharges the battery powering the electric motor. Other reports state that the RL hybrid will have a 300-hp gasoline engine powering the front wheels and a 100-hp electric motor powering the back wheels. Remember to take it with a grain of salt what comes off the message boards, though.
Acura Showcases High Performance Hybrid
It was only three years after Honda introduced its Insight gasoline-electric hybrid to the U.S. market that this automaker showed it was also interested in higher performance hybrid applications. This interest materialized in the form of the Acura DN-X, a wild concept sports car that brought this idea to the extreme. While the move toward hybrid performance materialized in showrooms a few short years later with the introduction of the Honda Accord Hybrid and its V-6 Integrated Motor Assist hybrid system, the DN-X headed in a whole new direction. It featured a 400 horsepower hybrid powerplant and exotic styling that seemed to suggest a next-generation NSX. This concept was well ahead of its time since we will surely see high performance hybrids come to the fore in the years ahead. This article is reprinted just as it ran in the very first issue of Green Car Journal (Special Edition 2003), sharing how automakers were beginning to explore hybrid power for performance along with fuel efficiency and emissions reduction.
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