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Honda Tweaks Manual Transmission Fit to Meet Canadian Rebate Requirements
24 July 2007
Toronto Star. Honda engineers have improved the fuel economy of the manual transmission version of the 2008 Fit subcompact model, enabling it to qualify for a C$1,000 rebate. (Earlier post.)
The company is no longer confident, however, of being able to improve fuel efficiency enough so Fit models with automatic transmissions or some versions of the Civic compact will be able to qualify under current federal criteria, said executive vice-president Jim Miller.
Earlier, Honda had hoped that engineers at the parent company in Japan could make changes to those models so they could also qualify.
Miller said the fuel-efficiency improvements for the Fit did not involve a reduction in weight. He declined to provide any other details.
The Fit originally missed qualifying for the rebate because the car consumes an average of one-tenth of a liter of gasoline per 100 kilometers more than the federal limit of 6.5 liters.
Sales of the Fit in Canada have climbed 67% to 7,303 in the first half of this year. The manual-transmission version is more popular than the model with an automatic transmission.
(A hat-tip to Stephen!)
July 24, 2007 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: Richard | July 24, 2007 at 01:29 PM
An interesting point is that the new Civic does not qualify for the rebate. Both Toyota's Yaris and Corolla do however.
Posted by: toyo | July 24, 2007 at 08:32 PM
I just want to know what "tweaks" were made to the manula Fit to make it compliant? It seems achieving a 0.1 liter improvement per 100kms could be easily done by just changing the final drive, or even switching to low-rolling resistance tires.
Either way, I wonder if any of these "tweaks" will make it to the US market.
Amazing the Toyota's Corolla is compliant. THat's a "real-sized" car. Bravo Toyota!
Posted by: DieselHybrid | July 24, 2007 at 09:45 PM
Richard, what are you talking about. The exact opposite happened – they modified the car so that it did make it and people could get a rebate on it. It's great to hear that the rebates are actually providing incentives for car manufacturers to make more fuel-efficient cars (granted, in this case, there isn't much to be joyous about since the improvement was .1 L, but still)
Posted by: lensovet | July 25, 2007 at 12:32 AM
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Shame that it "just missed" the requirements therefore not qualifying it for any incentive. I guess we might as well forget progress.