Geneva motor show - Honda

What's Honda up to?
Honda has wiped sponsors' logos off its Formula 1 car this year and replaced them with a map of the earth as part of a campaign to highlight environmental issues.

Its green credentials are on display at Geneva, too. A petrol-electric hybrid sports concept car that could form the basis of a replacement for the Insight and a driveable hydrogen fuel cell vehicle are taking centre stage. The fuel cell car heralds a model that will be built in limited numbers for Japan and America next year.

What else is it doing?
The company also made a commitment to treble production of the Civic IMA hybrid to 3000 a year and announced it is working on an ultra-clean diesel engine that will produce no more soot particles than a petrol unit. It will be in production within three years.

Last year Honda announced it would add a second hybrid, cheaper than the £15,400 Civic, by 2009. The concept at Geneva is expected to form the basis of it.

It was designed at Honda's German research and development centre and is a more practical two-seater than the Insight, which was in production for seven years, finding 234 buyers in the UK out of a total of nearly 17,000 worldwide.

The clean diesel engine is a 1.1-litre unit initially intended for small cars like the Jazz supermini, but bigger versions using the same technology will follow later.

It works by making its own ammonia which then reacts with soft particles (nitrous oxide) in the exhaust to produce harmless nitrogen.

The technology will be available in the US first, in a couple of years, but is almost certainly destined for Europe later.

To see video footage of the Honda stand, click here.