Honda Mowers Are No More

[cruzenmike]

I was at the Honda dealer last week getting my Rancher serviced and got into conversation with the dealership owner about Honda Mowers and he showed me a bulletin that was just released the day prior stating that in addition to Honda shifting focus of ATV production to UTV production over the next year, Honda North America will also be discontinuing production of lawn mowers and other types of select small engine powered equipment in 2023. The bulletin discussed the issues of maintaining compliance with more stringent environmental regulations and maintaining competitiveness as reasons for pulling out of the US lawn mower market.

The bulletin, which I quickly scanned over, also mentioned Honda either decommissioning the facility that currently manufactures lawn mowers or retrofitting it to make ATVs/UTVs at the end of 2023. It also sounded like Honda would be temporarily cease production of ATVs (four wheelers only) for a short period of time while production of these machines is moved to another facility (possible the one where mowers are made).

Maybe someone on here can shed some more light on this?

You die-hard Honda fans might want to snatch up an extra mower or brush cutter if all of this is true!!

 

[bertsmobile1]

No surprise there
California has banned petrol powered mower so that cuts a big chunk out their market and will probably make the factory uneconomic
Honda do have mower factories in China & Japan so it will probably be more economic to import mowers to sell in the few states where they comply with pollution regulations and concentrate on making the stuff that is expensive to import locally
The mower market is very price sensitive and adding a lot of emission controls to their already expensive mower range would probably have priced them out of the economic manufacturing range
Much like their ride on mowers and ride on mower engines .
Honda are very brand conscious so will not entertain making a poor quality product just to get the price down to a level that the market will accept .
Weather we like it or not politicans will continue to make poor decisions around environmental regulations that will neither damage their sponsors businesses nor cause them to be voted out at the next election.
No one will vote for the other colour just because their colour government banned the sale of new petrol powered mowers.
However those who have been wiped out by the floods , hurricanes or droughts that now get attributed to climate change might just change their vote because the government seems to be doing something ( regardless of weather it makes any difference or not )

 

[sgkent]

Forgive the lengthy answer.

Europe's economy is in shambles, and from what I understand it is a combination of the same factors as the US but worse - high energy prices and coming back after all the covid regulations. Inflation is high there too. But as Jamie Dimon said the other day, this climate change stuff and move to renewables is working so well that the world is turning to coal again to keep their manufacturing from completely collapsing. The two biggest hedge funds announced this week they will no longer be attending climate change summits. Will be interesting as manufacturers abandon lines of production and decide to put their money and assets elsewhere. The markets are in turmoil because no one has a clue where their money is really safe. So, Honda leaving the mower market is just a canary in the coal mine what lies ahead. Ironically, it has been brought up several times that the two largest producers of CO2, about 50% of the CO2 that goes into the atmosphere, are steel making and concrete use. Honda shutting down a plant will help neither unless all the new electric mowers are plastic - wait, making plastic uses fossil fuel too.

I might add that there is an interesting court case that appears to be going not in California's favor. It is in another area, pork products. California passed laws specifying how pigs have to be raised or the products cannot be sold in California. The US Constitution limits those kinds of powers to the Federal Government to keep one state from trying to one up another state by attacking their industries. This time the pig farming industry challenged California and said essentially - you can tell your own farmers what to do but you can't dictate to another state what they have to do. If the farmers win, which it is looking like, then the law could apply to other things like mowers - meaning that California could not ban companies in other states from selling their products like mowers. If the EPA exemption for California goes away, and there is movement to make it the same for all 50 states, California loses the ability to ban ICE. They can tell a manufacturer in California they can't make a gasoline engine mower, but they can't tell a company in say SC they can't sell their ICE mowers in California. The whole legal scene is changing in weird ways. For example a Federal judge ruled today that it cannot be a crime to own or transport a firearm with no serial number, or a removed serial number. It isn't Constitutional. By product of turning lots of felons loose who had nothing better to do than study the law books while they were in prison, and find loopholes in the law. California may be unable in the end to enforce an ICE ban when it is properly challenged in court by someone outside California who wants to sell their models in California.

 

[Scrubcadet10]

Wow

 

[sgkent]

Wow

Honda may be the canary in the coal mine literally.

 

[bertsmobile1]

But as Jamie Dimon said the other day, this climate change stuff and move to renewables is working so well that the world is turning to coal again to keep their manufacturing from completely collapsing.

You need to listen to better informed or more impartial people
A common trick is to start with a fact , Some EU countries are firing up their coal fired power stations,, True
Then invent a cause that suits your arguement that may or may not be true.
Because climate change & the move to renewables ,,, False
Because they were replaced with gas powered power stations using Russian gas that they can no longer get enough of is the actual reason
And the coal stations got mothballed but not decomissioned because Russian gas was very cheap, way cheaper than coal but supply was subject to political interfearence .
The EU's big problem was the mass abandonment & closure of their nuclear power stations after Fukushima Daiichi accident .
And this happened because loud mouths like Jamie Dimon jumped onto the band waggon and stirred up mass panic over nuclear power station safety ( does he have shares in coal mines ? or take money from the Coke brothers ? ) .
Now because of short election cycles , opposition parties got voted in on a platform of "saving the population for nuclear disasters " where as apart for the badly engineered Russian plants, the rest of the EU plants were perfectly safe so there was nothing to protect the population from but manufactured hysteria.
Ever heard of French or German atomic power plant failure ?
France gets about 80% of their power from nuclear power stations , mostly pebble bed style, About 5% from gas and the rest a mix of renewables & coal
Germany gets about 15% of its power from nuclear stations and was going to close them all down about 30% from gas 15% from coal and renewables for the rest
However german industry is very heavily Russian gas dependent where as French industry is mostly electric
If you actually get news from the rest of the planet in the USA you will see the French / German rivalry coming to the surface .
France is all too keen to ban Russian gas imports to the entire EU which of course will hurt German industry a lot more than French industry
They have both agreed to power share as like the USA peak power use is several hours out of phase in each country
However France will make a motza selling Germany more power than it does already ( about 10% of German power is bought in from France ) where as Germany will loose money selling power to France as it is a Kw to Kw arrangement not euros .

 

[sgkent]

However you see it, they are using coal to make up the slack. The green goal was zero coal. It is no different than someone saying my goal is to not overspend and save money this month, then having to return to credit borrowing because they are short on funds.

UK relaxes permitting conditions for coal-fired power plants this winter - Energy Live News

It will cover the period from 1st October 2022 to 31st March 2023 to address energy security issues if they arise, 'whilst aiming to limit unnecessary pollution'

www.energylivenews.com

Germany puts coal power plant back on network after gas supply cut

Mothballed facility in Lower Saxony gets emergency permission to run until April

www.theguardian.com

Amid an energy crisis, Germany turns to the world's dirtiest fossil fuel

Coal-fired power plants across Germany were scheduled to be shut down by the end of the year. But with Russia cutting gas deliveries, Germany is turning to coal.

www.npr.org

Germany extends run times for coal-fired power plants to boost supply

Germany's cabinet on Wednesday passed two decrees to prolong the operation of sizeable hard coal-fired power generation plants up to March 31, 2024, and to bring back idled brown coal capacity up to June 30, 2023, to boost supply.

www.reuters.com

 

[bertsmobile1]

Well a bit simplistic & not really accurate
CO2 abatement is not some thing that can be done overnight in a democracy where the government can not issue a decree & every one follows it or gets shot .
Every plan has assumptions that is is based on and in Germany's case it was Russian gas could be used to replace all of the coal burning power stations.
A war that cut off the supply of Russian gas was not planned for so it caught them off guard .
Gas being a hydrocarbon naturally produces less CO2 the strait coal and a direct gas powered turbine is a lot more efficient than a radient wall furnaces as you don't have to keep it running at red hot levels all the time .
The business model of getting private companies to supply electricity was a bad idea from day one and we found this big time this year where aall of the smarty pants modern states who privatised their power supply have just had price increases of 30% this year, a projected 40% next year and another 40% the year after
Western Australia who retained power generation & supply in government hands have not had a power cost increase above inflation adjustments for the past 50 years .
People who have a political agenda will take any aboration to normality to "prove" that their idology is right .

The actual problem is too many people for a start
Ask any farmer about the consequences of over stocking
Then 30% of those people consuming way too much
On top of that 90% of what that 30% consume is a poor quality so requires very frequent replacement .
Those who produce short term rubbish and that is near 90% of all manufacturers spend a fortune reinforcing the lie that every thing you want will be bigger & better every year & technology will make it cheaper every year and of course we MUST have all of the stuff we don't need .
Add to that power of mind manipulation that the USA Advertising agencies perfected post WW II and you are set down the road to destruction .I was born into a 4 generation house thus child care was not a problem .
We cut the grass with an unpowered push mower till 1966 so not getting exercise was not a problem
We grew nearly all of our own fruit & vetetables so shopping could be done on foot and of course none of the wives worked for income outside the home .
Dad rode a pushbike to work 8 miles each way & pop used public transport .
We had a Tray Way washing machine with a wringer and that lasted 50 years
Yet even without all of the "Modern Labour Saving" devices the entire 9 of us did no work on Sunday apart from the 5 women preparing the Sunday roast lunch & doing the weeks baking .
After lunch the men cleaned up so the women had Sunday afternoon off
There was no air conditioning in the hose & the only heater was a couple of kerrosene portable heaters .

Now days air conditioning is supposed to be essential in every house, washing machines are lucky to last longer than 5 years and about the same for a TV . My sister took the old Kelvanator fridge with her when she moved out & bought mum a new 2 door fridge .
The old fridge is still working 55 years latter mums new fridge was replaced a second time before I moved out 6 years latter .
We had a flip flop toaster that used 100% of the electricity to toast your bread and of course it was perfect every time and could be rewired when the element broke which dad did about every year or so before it got passed onto me .
I have a pop up toaster that I have repaired at least 4 times in the 6 years I have had it by doing work arounds
Others would have replaced it every 2 years, and of course 1/3 of the electricity it uses does not cook the toast but heats the kitchen because it is cheaper to wind the elements spiral than serpentine so the back of each element just wasted electricity ( 300 watts x 6 minutes x 365 days a year . makes swapping incandescent globes for LEDs look stupid ) .

However all governments of all colours are indebeted to big business and big business makes a fortune by selling us stuff that look pretty but has a very short life so no government can bring in the sorts of regulation that would actually make a difference for fear of their parties addiction to vast amounts of money for their propergander being cut off