Honda Jazz Hybrid Draws Inspiration From Company’s F1 Car

New information on the all-new Honda Jazz seems to come up with every passing day. Honda Europe has recently revealed that the upcoming Jazz, which is scheduled to launch by the end of this year, will 'drive advanced Honda hybrid innovation from the race track to the road'. Using the expertise of its motorsport team engineers, the Japanese carmaker is drawing out knowledge from 1™ Hybrid Power Unit (PU) programme to enhance the energy efficiency of the company’s e:HEV hybrid tech. The same technology is expected to be offered with the all-new Jazz.

Head of PU Development, Mr Yasuaki Asaki said, “During a Formula 1 race weekend teams have to manage very carefully how much fuel they use to comply with the sport’s regulations. In a race we can divide the total fuel allowance over the number of laps, but there are going to be situations where a team might wish to use more fuel in order to get higher performance and in other parts of the race they will want to save fuel for later, while behind a safety car for example. In a race, the communication between the race engineer and the driver is key to achieving that best balance. However, in our road-going e:HEV hybrids we apply our expertise to ensure the Powertrain control units deliver the best possible power to efficiency ratio for the driver, in any required driving mode.”

The recently introduced Formula 1 Hybrid Power Unit has been named as RA620H, which derives power from an extremely powerful 1600 cc six-pot internal combustion engine paired with an Energy Recovery System. This advanced hybrid electric system cleverly reprocesses the power energy produced by brakes and exhaust gases to make added boost energy for better acceleration and to minimize the turbo lag.

Last year, company’s Hybrid Power Unit has helped its partnered teams namely- Aston Martin Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso (now known as Scuderia AlphaTauri), to achieve three race wins and six podium places. During the race, Honda Formula 1 engineers were continuously evaluating and modifying the ratio of power recovered and deployed by the hybrid system to offer top performance.