Word: honda
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Mostly, though, the Minsk Club is all about the rallies, where aficionados ride out to the countryside to roast pigs and swap stories. It was at a recent gathering that enthusiasts sacrificed a reviled Honda Dream to the god of Minsk. Of course, the Dream thrown into the pig-roast blaze was a miniature paper model used in Vietnamese funeral ceremonies, not a full-size scooter. Then again, with devotion like this, it's hard to put anything past these true believers...
...high-performance Porsche. It might sound like an environmentalist's fantasy, but there it was on display at the Paris Auto Show last September: the Hy-wire, a politically correct, fully functional prototype that General Motors claims could be road ready by 2010. Other car manufacturers--including Toyota, Honda and Ford--are working on post-fossil-fuel automobiles, but only GM has rethought the car from the ground up, adopting an impressive array of advanced technologies invented both in Detroit and very far from it. Instead of an internal-combustion engine, for example, the Hy-wire is powered by fuel...
...production. It is doing so indirectly, by limiting the flow of parts that go into bikes. In September, the government announced it was slashing the number of "assembly kits" manufacturers are allowed to import this year from 2.5 million down to 1.5 million?effectively cutting the motorcycle output of Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki by some 40% at a time when they are already feeling pressure from cheaper Chinese-made bikes...
...Japanese have always been required to use some Vietnamese-made parts during assembly, under deals made with the government allowing them to set up factories in Vietnam. But there's been a running spat over whether Japan is living up to those contracts. Hanoi in July accused Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki of falsifying records to make it look like they are buying more local parts than they actually were. "These companies use the fact that they are big investors to strong-arm our government," complains Nguyen Van Khoa, president of the Vietnam Association of Motorcycles...
...restrictions, there may be an ugly backlash. The country's bilateral trade agreement with Japan?a prerequisite to WTO ascension?has already been delayed. At least one Japanese parts manufacturer looking to set up shop in Vietnam has put investment plans on hold, according to Oyama, the Honda director. "This is not just a motorcycle issue," warns a senior Japanese official. "People everywhere are watching closely to see whether Vietnam is really committed to opening up to investment." Even a safety advocate like Craft is mystified as to what Hanoi hopes to achieve, "They're playing with...