Due to a gas shortage during World War II, Honda was unable to use his car, and his novel idea of attaching a small engine to his bicycle attracted much curiosity. Eventually, he won a contract with Toyota and built a factory to construct pistons for them, which was destroyed in an earthquake. The first drafts of his design were rejected, and Soichiro worked painstakingly to perfect the design, even going back to school and pawning his wife's jewelry for collateral. A self-taught engineer, he later worked on a piston design which he hoped to sell to Toyota. He worked as a mechanic at a Japanese tuning shop, Art Shokai, where he tuned cars and entered them in races. 8 Electric and alternative fuel vehiclesįrom a young age, Honda's founder, Soichiro Honda (本田宗一郎, Honda Sōichirō) had a great interest in automobiles.

Honda spends about 5% of its revenues into R&D. They have also ventured into aerospace with the establishment of GE Honda Aero Engines in 2004 and the Honda HA-420 HondaJet, scheduled to be released in 2011. Since 1986, Honda has been involved with artificial intelligence/robotics research and released their ASIMO robot in 2000. Aside from their core automobile and motorcycle businesses, Honda also manufactures garden equipment, marine engines, personal watercraft and power generators, amongst others. Honda was the first Japanese automobile manufacturer to release a dedicated luxury brand, Acura in 1986. Honda is the sixth largest automobile manufacturer in the world. As of August 2008, Honda surpassed Chrysler as the fourth largest automobile manufacturer in the United States. Honda surpassed Nissan in 2001 to become the second-largest Japanese automobile manufacturer. Honda is the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume (number), producing more than 14 million internal combustion engines each year. ( Japanese: 本田技研工業株式会社, Honda Giken Kōgyō Kabushiki-gaisha ?, Honda Technology Research Institute Company, Limited) is a Japanese multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles, engines and motorcycles.

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