Mr. Takanobu blames his company's salespeople in Europe for failing to convince customers that Honda is greener than Toyota (at least in the European market).  He states, "Our European sales people are largely to blame. We tried to enhance our position with the Civic hybrid but failed. But the CR-Z and Insight will help us enhance awareness that Honda is a green car maker. We also want to introduce the FCX to Europe and have started testing here."

He says that plans to offer more hybrid models in the U.S. or Europe, which has fewer Honda models, aren't likely.  He says his company thrives on efficiency and that more models would be damaging.  On the topic of platform reduction, he says that his company is working on that.  He states, "We will try to reduce the number of platforms, but this will take time."

When asked about why the company's clean diesel research was dropped, he blamed how tough it was to develop the technology.  He states, "It was too challenging to produce a commercialized clean diesel. We got it to work at a research and development level, but we couldn’t make it work commercially."

He sees electric vehicles as a possibility, but inferior to fuel cell vehicles.  He states, "The performance of batteries is evolving and there are possibilities. But the energy that can be stored is less than an internal combustion engine can produce, and with current battery technology electric vehicles are city commuters." He adds, "Honda has, from an early stage, worked on fuel cell vehicles. Battery EVs are heavy, not fun to drive and aren’t reliable, and when it comes to cars lighter is better. FCVs are going in that direction."

He says that fuel cell cost cuts are going well, stating, "We can do cost reduction and mass production of the technology. It’s simple to produce fuel cells; it’s the chemicals they use that cost money, along with the precious metals. But we can cut the cost of those, too."

However, he says FCVs (fuel cell vehicles) are unlikely to hit the mass market anytime soon due to lack of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure.

While some of Mr. Takanobu's comments may come off as blunt or controversial, one must consider that the CEO's career began as an engineer in the field of chassis design, and he is well grounded in technical matters, as well as business.  He began his career with Honda in 1978 and was named new CEO of the company this February.  In closing the interview, he said that Honda's focus in Europe and elsewhere would continue to be on making great small cars.