TOKYO -- The NSX sports car is making a long-awaited homecoming in Japan that underscores the global ambitions of a halo hybrid that must do double duty for the Acura and Honda brands.
The original NSX, sold between 1990 and 2005, was engineered and manufactured in Japan. Now, the second generation returns as a car developed and produced in America.
Honda began taking orders in Japan for the 573-hp electric-gasoline sports car today. The NSX went on sale in the U.S. earlier this summer. It arrives in Europe and China this fall and eventually will reach some 51 countries across the globe.
It’s a long story arc for Honda Motor Co.
Honda was the first Japanese automaker to build vehicles in the U.S. when it opened an assembly plant in Marysville, Ohio, in 1982 to build the Accord. Now, Marysville will painstakingly hand build the redesigned NSX for all markets worldwide at the company’s 206,000-square-foot Performance Manufacturing Center.
“It’s a coming of age,” Clement D’Souza, chief engineer in charge of NSX production at Honda of America Manufacturing Inc., said of America’s role in building the car.
“We have finally grown up and can take on this responsibility.”
Honda has a soft target of selling 6,000 units worldwide over the next three years, Noriaki Wada, the car’s chief dynamics adviser, said in a briefing ahead of the Japan launch.
But D’Souza said long-term demand is hard to read. He is targeting just 800 units for North America and 100 for Japan in the first year. Production is crawling at a rate of just five cars a day, and the interim goal is simply to lift that output to eight, he said.
Hybrid roles
The NSX is a hybrid in more ways than just its sophisticated high-tech drivetrain, which mates three electric motors to a 3.5-liter, twin-turbocharged, V-6 gasoline engine. It was also a hybrid project.
Development was led out of the U.S., but work was split 50-50 with engineers in Japan. Japan took the lead in creating the sporty hybrid drivetrain. The U.S. had responsibility for most everything else, from chassis and design to production and packaging.
The U.S. even contributed the chief engineer, Ted Klaus, head of global development.
The NSX also presents Honda with hybrid branding. In some markets, including the U.S., China and the Middle East, it will be sold under the premium Acura brand. But in others, such as Japan and Europe, the flagship two-seater will sit atop the mass-market Honda brand.
The 2017 NSX generates 573 hp and does 0 to 60 mph in just more than 3 seconds. Prices start at $157,800, including shipping, and can run past $200,000 with options.
Klaus conceded that at that bargain price -- when compared with rival benchmarks such as the Ferrari 458 or Porsche 911 Turbo -- the NSX is a long-term profitability play.
“We talk about direct return on investment and also indirect,” he said. “To get direct return on investment, it’s going to take a long life cycle.”
Product cycle
The production cycle will have to approach that of the original NSX, he said, without giving a definitive time frame.
A long product cycle will mean keeping the NSX fresh with variants, he added. But he declined to discuss other possibilities. Observers have speculated about an open-top targa model, a nonhybrid version or even an all-electric iteration.
But fresh alternatives are on the way. “Right now, we are already working on future ideas,” he said.
“The key is to fully satisfy the initial customers’ demands and then begin to introduce the next exciting proposals,” he said. “So these kinds of waves are coming.”
In the meantime, however, the NSX will deliver plenty of indirect dividends in terms of new technologies, human resource development and brand building, he said.
