Interesting news today from the Honda Motor Company, as the Japanese manufacturer has stated that its global operations have been affected by a cyber attack on its computer systems.
Honda isn’t saying too much about the situation right now, other than it is affecting email and internal systems. But, Honda is also reporting that the cyber attack has impacted production outside of Japan.
Insert the obvious SkyNet joke here, but the future of two-wheeled transportation is constantly moving ahead of us, to a place previously held only by science-fiction.
We have talked here at Asphalt & Rubber a great deal about connected and autonomous vehicles and its related technologies – insert a massive number of links here – and today we just got a little bit closer to all those concepts becoming realized.
Announcing their latest collaboration, BMW, Honda, and Yamaha have agreed to develop cooperative-intelligent transportation systems (C-ITS) for motorcycles, the first step in adding vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication to motorcycles.
The three companies will work together to establish a a consortium named Connected Motorcycle Consortium (CMC), which aims to have C-ITS devices on the three motorcycle brands from 2020 onwards.
Hosting a ceremony today in Tokyo, Honda Motor Company announced that it has produced cumulatively 300 million motorcycles worldwide.
The milestone, which was actually reach in September of this year, but just now celebrated by the Japanese company, comes in Honda’s 66th year of making motorcycles, when the brand entered the market with the Honda Dream Type-D in 1949.
Honda Motor Co. just released its sales figures for motorcycles in 2010, and surprisingly the Japanese company has done very well during an otherwise dismal year for the motorcycle industry. The secret to Honda’s success? The Asian market. Eight out of ten motorcycles Honda produces, ends up in Asia…and this figure excludes motorcycles sold in Japan and China.
Honda sold 14.3 million motorcycles in what it calls Asian countries last year (17.7 million globally), a record for the company, and a figure that is 23% higher than the previous record, which was set last year (another horrible year for the motorcycle industry we might add). Compare that staggering quantity to the 1.3 million units sold in China (the largest single country for Honda sales), 261,000 units sold in Europe, and 210,000 in North America, and the true value of the growing Asian economy becomes apparent.