Honda Motor Co

With few exceptions in modern motorbiking, the two-wheeled world has broken down something like this: Manual transmission equals motorcycle (and macho). Automatic transmission equals scooter (and sissy). But in the last year, the most caveman of two-wheeled categorizations has begun to evolve: Motorcycles are beginning to incorporate automatic transmissions. The Honda DN-01, which is rolling into U.S.

Asian vehicles once again dominated Consumer Reports' annual ranking of new cars and light trucks, and Honda Motor Co. was named top automaker for the third year in a row. The company rankings are based on the performance and reliability of the vehicles, as determined by the magazine's staff in testing and customer surveys. Among individual vehicle categories, Toyota Motor Corp.'s namesake brand led the pack with top picks in four categories -- mid-size SUV, small SUV, minivan and green car.

Honda's Prius-killer is looking a lot like road kill. When it debuted in March, Honda Motor Corp.'s retooled Insight hybrid looked to be the first serious challenger to the Prius, Toyota Motor Corp.'s ecological wunder-car. Graced with a low price, 40-mpg-plus fuel economy and the Japanese automaker's reputation for quality, the Insight even looked like the Prius.

Honda Motor Co.'s U.S. finance arm and three major U.S. banks have agreed to settle class-action lawsuits filed by black customers who accused them of racial bias in automobile lending practices. The suits alleged that the companies' policies allowed car dealers to charge thousands of black customers more interest on auto loans than was charged to whites with similar financial histories. The interest was in the form of a dealer-added "markup" to the basic interest rate.

Honda Motor Co., the third-largest Japanese automaker, has decided not to build an eight-cylinder engine because high fuel prices are pushing buyers to more efficient motors. The company will focus instead on expanding diesel and gasoline-electric engine output. "It's not the time to make a V-8," Honda Chief Executive Takeo Fukui said at the Frankfurt International Motor Show in Germany. "We need to focus on diesels and hybrids first."

Ken Gibson can tell you that it's a little eerie to hear the "William Tell" overture float through your bedroom window at 2 in the morning. He first thought the noise was a neighbor playing a xylophone. His neighbor was convinced it was a ghost. Across West Avenue K in Lancaster, where the flat brown desert rises up into purple mountains, two others thought the noise was the high school marching band. They all soon learned that the tune was coming from a musical road installed by Honda Motor Co.

Honda Motor Co., expanding into aviation from automobiles, motorcycles and engines, said Friday that it would spend $60 million for a North Carolina headquarters and factory for its new aircraft unit. Honda Aircraft Co. will begin producing small planes for delivery by 2010 and employ at least 300 people, spokesman Jeffrey Smith told reporters in Greensboro, N.C. Honda's entry into aircraft manufacturing sets up a competition with Textron Inc.'s Cessna Aircraft unit in Wichita, Kan.

The shady used-car salesman's trick is to roll back the odometer to make a car appear newer. Honda Motor Co.'s odometers moved faster for the opposite effect. How's that? "I never noticed anything was amiss," said Agoura Hills resident Dick Hansen, who bought a 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid last year and thought he had put 18,000 miles on it -- but may have driven only 17,600.

Honda Motor Co. will spend at least $8 million to boost capacity by two-thirds at a Mexican assembly plant and switch all of its production to CR-V sport utility vehicles to meet rising North American sales. Honda will build 50,000 CR-Vs a year at El Salto, near Guadalajara, where it now makes Accord sedans at a rate of 30,000 a year. About half the CR-Vs built at El Salto will be sold in Mexico, and the rest will be shipped to the U.S. and a variety of Latin American markets.