Where is it being engineered?

[Arshad]

I have a good friend at Honda Canada, and he's part of the engineering team that's done some engineering work on previous Acura models such as the suspension on the MDX. I asked him outright, and he does not know of any involvement on Honda Canada's part, and suspects that all of the engineering will actually be done in Japan. I'm going to ask him to dig around to see if he can find out more.

Thoughts? Are there any components that you think might be developed in the US? I guess the first question is, do you guys know of any other previous vehicles that had any aspect of their design engineered in North America?

 

[BD]

I'm going to say this car will be designed in Torrence California of Honda's North America Head Quarter.

I'm not surprised your friend in Canada heard of nothing because the concept car was not even close of being drivable with no interior, engine/transmission, etc.

In fact, the concept was probably a body kit over a NSX chassis as I have assumed in the past. Everything they talked about is composed of what they have been working on for other cars and they simply tossed the ideas together for this show. In case you didn't know, Bugatti Veyron was body first, solve all other problems later concept car, and this NSX concept is probably in the same boat.

Since it is three years away, I'm sure they're just now assembling the design team to get this project going.

 

[Arshad]

When you say design, do you mean exterior design? I think it's clear that the NA team is doing the exterior design. I was referring to the components like the transmission (already done?), electric motors (already done?), ICE (not done), 4 wheel control system, chassis, and all of the simulations/FEA for aero, rigidity, etc.

It seems to me that 3 years away is not that far away. I'm not in the automotive industry but I would imagine that they need to get their manufacturers final specs 18 months from now at the very latest in order to be ramped for production. Aside from all of the obvious, there's a TON of new firmware that needs to be written for the traction/stability/torque vectoring, etc. Not only does it need to be written but I imagine it needs to go through at least 8-12 months of tweaking on a track and under different road conditions to get it debugged and performing optimally.

I would hope that their team is already assembled and well along on the design or this is not coming out in 3 years without huge leveraging of existing technology.

 

[BD]

Honda North America design center is equipped with everything they can do in Japan. The J series engine was design and manufactured in the US so they have a great reputation with the quality and design. Transmission, I can't tell you since this one is going to be a brand new peddle gear box.

I know they have a team of Japanese Honda engineers on assignment here in California working with the American team. I met some of them years ago at a cigar shop in Torrance, where Honda own a large corporate cigar locker.

 

[Arshad]

Ah ok, I did not know that -- good to know! It'll be interesting to see if they split up the responsibility for different components between Japan and US teams.

 

[Arshad]

Looks like it'll be engineered here in North America:

"The new Acura supercar, expected to debut in the next three years, will be developed by an engineering team led by Honda R&D Americas, Inc.,"

From the Acura Media Newsroom:

http://acuranews.com/channels/acura...e-2012-north-american-international-auto-show