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This squat crossover previews future VW styling—and maybe even future hybrid tech.

Following a rich automaker tradition of building concept cars targeting the millionaire entrepreneur/weekend decathlete market, Volkswagen has unveiled the Cross Coupé concept at the Tokyo auto show.

Keep Reading: Volkswagen Cross Coupé Concept – Auto Shows

Prior to the Tokyo auto show, Honda showed us a number of its upcoming technologies (including its new direct-injection engines), and one of the most promising is Electric SH-AWD. To review, SH-AWD stands for Super Handling All-Wheel Drive and, on current Acura products that bear the label, it signifies a four-wheel-drive powertrain that can route engine torque to either of the rear wheels to improve cornering.

Electric SH-AWD operates on a similar principle, and will be found on at least one upcoming Acura in the near future (pay no mind to the fact that the demonstration vehicle pictured here is an Accord). Instead of sending a driveshaft to the rear wheels and proportioning the power via clutches in a differential, the rear wheels simply use two electric motors. It’s a deceptively simple idea, and one that’s popped up in one form or another from various automakers (the Porsche 918 Spyder and RSR concepts feature something similar, for example). We’d have thought of it ourselves but were too busy looking for Asimo, Honda’s walking robot. He never showed.

The rear electric motors are only part of an overall hybrid powertrain concept. Up front is the latest development of Honda’s 3.5-liter V-6, now with direct injection and an output of at least 308 hp and 266 lb-ft of torque. The engine is mated to a Honda-built seven-speed dual-clutch transmission with a 40-hp DC electric motor integrated into the housing. Unlike Honda’s current IMA hybrid system, this new setup allows the engine to decouple from the electric motor. The benefit is that, during electric regeneration, all of the energy can flow through the motor (acting as a generator) into the batteries; no energy is used to spin the gasoline engine. Similarly, no battery power is wasted spinning the engine during EV-mode stints, which currently is the case with Honda’s hybrids. Interestingly, EV mode actually uses the rear motors to propel the car, which brings us back to SH-AWD.

Connected to each rear wheel is a 27-hp DC motor, either of which can deliver torque to its respective wheel or create drag through electric regeneration. The system works just like a mechanical torque-vectoring system but with much less hardware and, incidentally, less weight. When the car enters a corner, the system will send power to the outside rear wheel and drag on the inside rear wheel. In this scenario, the dragging motor can send electricity directly to the assisting motor in real time. As the car progresses through the corner, the inside rear motor will switch to electric assist to provide optimum traction. And if the lithium-ion batteries are depleted, the electric motor in the front of the car can act as a generator to make sure the SH-AWD system still operates.

With this system, Honda claims V-8 levels of acceleration and four-cylinder levels of fuel economy, without providing any specific numbers. Before you go adding up all the horsepower figures, remember that electric motors make most of their power at low speed, so the total system output is somewhere above the gasoline motor’s 308 horsepower, but we’re not sure how much higher. Both the power and economy claims might be a little ambitious. Still, we’re glad to see Honda taking a new approach to hybrids, especially one focused on performance as much as efficiency.

Despite Honda’s reputation for building great engines, the Japanese automaker has been slow to adopt direct injection (DI). The technology is now commonplace in all segments of the market, and allows for higher compression ratios and therefore improved efficiency. At an event surrounding the Tokyo auto show, Honda has told us that it is finally ready to add this feature to its engines. Besides DI, the engines also will feature a stop/start system.

At the top of the line is a redesigned 3.5-liter V-6, which features cylinder shutdown and a two-stage oil pump. With at least 308 hp and 266 lb-ft of torque, this engine delivers more power than Honda’s existing 3.7-liter engine and should yield a fuel-economy improvement of about 10 percent.

Another highlight of the lineup is a new 1.6-liter turbo-diesel, which is meant to replace the current 2.2-liter oil-burner found in markets outside of the United State. It’s claimed to be as light as a gasoline engine; the all-aluminum design features an open-deck block, which shaves pounds but is less stiff than the closed-deck design normally seen on diesel engines. Still, Honda claims the weight savings come without any long-term reliability concerns, thanks to new high-strength aluminum alloys, a stiff head design, and optimized cooling. Output figures of 118 hp and 221 lb-ft of torque are impressive for the downsized displacement. Alas, Honda executives are silent on whether or not we’ll ever see this engine in North America.

We also saw a 2.4-liter inline-4 that makes at least 181 hp and 177 lb-ft of torque. Compared to the current, port-injected 2.4-liter four in the new CR-V, those numbers represent a drop of 4 hp but an increase of 14 lb-ft; the differences are negligible enough, however, that we’d expect similar performance with better fuel economy. The outputs of Honda’s DI-equipped 1.8-liter and 1.5-liter fours are likewise similar to their current port-injection equivalents.

You Can’t Spell Continuously Variable Transmission Without Three of the Letters in “Honda”

Honda also announced a new series of continuously variable transmissions that supposedly reduce the annoyances we expect of this type of gearbox. The new CVTs—one is intended for mid-size and compact cars, the other for Japanese-market microcars—promise quicker response to throttle inputs, which should mean smoother acceleration and less of the irritating rubber-band feeling that occurs when the engine revs climb before there’s any noticeable change in speed. It’s a story of incremental gains here, made mostly through a wider belt (30 millimeters versus the current Honda CVT’s 24 mm) that reduces surface pressure, redesigned grooves in the pulley that better retain transmission fluid, and more precise control of the hydraulic pump. The ratio spread also is increased for better fuel economy.

When exactly we’ll see these engines and transmissions in showrooms hasn’t been announced, but we expect them to start entering the lineup sometime in the next two years. In typical fashion, Honda won’t make any claims about actual efficiency numbers or performance relative to its competitors, but we suspect that these updated powertrains will burnish Honda’s engine-building reputation and put its cars near the top of the fuel-economy heap.

Starting now, expect to hear more from Nissan’s performance division.

Nissan’s performance division has had a fairly narrow scope in the U.S. of late—a NISMO-badged 370Z here and a few upgrade parts there, but little else. Nissan wants that to change, and plans to expand NISMO’s influence to more road cars in the future. To show the performance potential hiding in its everyday products—and to signal its intent to broaden its NISMO offerings—the automaker brought this Juke concept to the Tokyo auto show.

Keep Reading: Nissan Juke NISMO Concept – Auto Shows

Hit play for an audio recording of a mystery car’s exhaust note, and then share your guesses or get a few hints from other visitors in the comments below. Be sure to check back on Thursday for the answer!

Honda Crosstour launched in China

The Crosstour has not been a successful car for Honda China, the 3.5L V6 Crosstour was introduced in to the Guangzhou-Honda joint venture and saw initial sales in the high hundreds but quickly tapered off into the 100 cars per month area, it seems that demand for the V6 is just not there – especially when the larger Toyota Highlander with similar engines are being sold a few doors down.

Honda’s next gamble to save the Crosstour is to install the 2.4L engine from the Honda Accord and CRV into the crossover to make it more affordable and possibly more attractive to consumers who don’t want to pay the added sales tax for a large engine or the added running costs. Where will the 2.4L be priced at? Chinese auto media are guessing that it will be somewhere between Accord and CRV pricing obviously, and should be in the 250,000-270,000rmb price bracket when launched .

The Japanese Three of Nissan, Toyota and Honda decided that their run of the mill brands were far too bland to take on the luxury segment, so they came out with Infiniti, Lexus and Acura to target the the high end segments that were being dominated by the German Three consisting of BMW, Mercedes and Audi and also the American Two luxury brands, Cadillac, Lincoln, and possibly Chrysler. Now Chinese manufacturers face a similar problem, Chinese cars have a reputation for being low cost and ultimately low down on the shopping list when it comes to car shopping, even Chinese consumers are not in a rush to buy a Chinese car with the majority of the Chinese car market being dominated by foreign manufacturers.

Chery wants to change that, they partnered with Israeli Corp’s Quantum LLC in 2007 to make a range of high end cars for the Chinese market and export markets.Israeli Corp are flush with cash and want to make cars, Chery on the other hand are making good cars but have a poor brand image, together they could change that. The partnership was given the go ahead by the Chinese government in December 2007 but the company went to ground and no news was heard from them until recently.

Qoros Timeline:

The new brand, Qoros, was officially born yesterday. At the joint press conference between Quantum LLC and Chery in Shanghai, the new home of Qoros, officials from both companies were eager to put forward their plans for the company, showing their new logo and also first concept car. Both companies have invested around 3.4 billion RMB in capital into the company which should see its first car hit the roads in 2013. Qoros won’t be another Chinese company aiming to export its models, instead Qoros is staffed by largely international talent at the top of the company with former Volvo, GM, VW and Jaguar Land Rover staff on board. The Vice Chairman, Mr. Volker Steinwascher claims that Qoros is aiming to produce annual sales of 150,000 vehicles by 2015 or 2016 with roughly half of those sales being to the international market. The first three cars will be compact models designed from scratch in partnership with Chery, the engines are already being designed by the Austrian tech firm AVL and will be produced by Chery, although Chery already produces its own ATECO engines. According to Chinese press reports the new brand will be a premium brand designed by industry leaders and be on par with current premium brands in terms of quality and engineering but sell at around 10% less than current manufacturers. The first car is expected to be a compact sedan, a compact hatchback and also a small SUV will follow, Qoros are also expected to produce EV versions of their models as well.

We’re not quite sure what is happening at Beijing Auto Industry Corp these days, their mini Jeep clone, the BAIC B40 seems to have been launched and then unlaunched, the B70 (a five door version) was due to launch this year but has also disappeared. Their Saab based vehicles are supposedly hitting the production lines later this month and their mini MPV is also heading for production next month. BAIC have taken their partners designs for granted before, as shown above they took a liking to the Jeep Wrangler, they also took a shine to Merc’s B-Class MPV, and now they’ve taken a more than a liberal shine to the Mercedes G-Wagon. The G-Wagon’s muscular angles were too much for the BAIC guys to resist and they have come up with the B80V, a civilian version of the B80VJ (top left) which in turn is based on the Yong Shi (Brave Soldier) SUV which is the new Military SUV of choice for the Peoples Liberation Army as they phase out their Soviet world war two era BJ2020′s.

When and where the B80V will be shown is anyone’s guess at this stage, but we can say with some authority that it wont be a powerful vehicle, the B40 and B70 SUV’s were rumored to be 4 cylinder engines pulling 1800kg cars which is not the best combination for off road or even on road use if you want to get anywhere fast.

Last week I had lunch with a government minister from the central government, not a lacky from a city or provincial government, the real deal at the top of the table. He was quite dismayed with the recent announcement that ministers were being pushed to buy local brand cars and also keep their spending under 180,000rmb, I asked him what brands he could buy he said Hong Qi was at the top of the preferred brand list, but Hong Qi never had any decent cars, until now.

The C131 comes as the government pushes to get more Chinese branded cars in the government fleet, the order to buy local has come down many times before but the local brands could not bring quality levels up to anything approaching the quality levels that Mandarins were used to, so they quietly ignored it and still bought Audi’s. Now the government is serious, they want more Chinese cars and FAW has rallied to the call by reigniting the Hong Qi brand, the first full size car to come from Hong Qi for at least a few years will be the C131, this car is rumored to be based on the Auid A6 which is going out of production soon, in the above spy picture you can see some Audi design styles hiding behind that chrome grill, but the fact remains that we are not entirely sure – the same as the Chinese media. Perhaps it is an Audi, perhaps it is a modified Toyota Crown, the two companies have been donor cars for Hong Qi’s in the past.