Honda Holds Test Ride for Press to Celebrate Marine Business 60th Anniversary

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of its marine business, Honda held a test-ride event for the press of the BF350 outboard motor, which went on sale in February.

Sixty years have passed since the launch of Honda’s first outboard motor in 1964, the GB30, powered by a 3 hp 4-stroke 1-cylinder engine. The new BF350 has a 5000 cc V8 engine with an output of 350 hp. At the test ride event, many members of the press commented favorably on the BF350’s power and comfort.

Newly developed 350 hp 5L V8 engine

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The BF350, launched in February 2024, is an outboard motor by Honda’s first V8 engine in a commercial product, with a displacement of 5000 cc and output of 350 horsepower. The development of this model started with the aim of achieving high output and high reliability, as well as quietness, low fuel consumption, and high environmental performance.

Outboard motors are attached externally to boats. They are in demand all over the world for recreational use, fishing, fishing, cab boats, coast guard boats, and more. The global outboard motor industry is said to be a $10 billion market (1.5 trillion yen at 150 yen/dollar).

Developer Interview: Developing Honda’s First Production V8 Engine

Honda’s Manufacturing

The press briefing and BF350 test ride started with an explanation of Honda’s philosophy of enriching people’s lives with cars and motorcycles on land, HondaJet in the sky, and Honda outboard motors on the water.

Why Honda Manufactures 4-Stroke Engines for Outboard Motors

The reason Honda develops 4-stroke engines for its outboard motors is company founder Soichiro Honda’s principle that “watercraft should not pollute the water.”

Based on the belief that a machine developed to help workers should not pollute the environment in which they work, Honda developed an environmentally friendly 4-stroke engine instead of the 2-stroke, which at the time accounted for 99.9 percent of the outboard motor market and expelled oil into the water.

Despite 4-stroke engines having many more parts and are heavier and more costly than 2-strokes, Honda took on this challenge anyway. Since then, due in part to changes in global environmental awareness, approximately 80 percent of outboard motors in the world now use 4-stroke engines.

The Challenges of 4-Stroke Engines and the Change in the World Environment

Honda’s original 4-stroke outboard engines, launched in 1964, were not selling well and faced difficult conditions until the mid-1990s. However, a tailwind of changing environmental awareness brought 4-stroke outboard motors into the limelight.

A typical example is the Lake Constance regulations issued in Europe, aimed at improving and preserving the water quality of Lake Constance, which straddles the three countries of Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. The 1993 regulations imposed exhaust gas restrictions on engines used for boats navigating the lake, and were said to be the “world’s most stringent outboard engine emission regulations.” Honda’s BF8B was the first model in the world to meet these regulations in 1992. These regulation triggered the acceleration in the outboard engine market to shift to 4-stroke engines. Honda, which had already been selling 4-stroke outboard motors during this period, strengthened its lineup as competitors rushed to develop their own 4-stroke models.

Global Financial Crisis and the Outboard Motor Market Slowdown

However, the global financial crisis triggered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008 plunged the entire marine market and shipping industry, including the global outboard motor market, into chaos.

Honda’s outboard motor production plummeted to nearly half of its annual production. Later, in around 2020, Honda had recovered to pre-crisis levels, partly due to the reevaluation of boating leisure as a personal vehicle in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has continued to the present day.

Newly developed BF350 to meet market’s need for larger boats

The global market for outboard motors is currently moving toward higher output and larger displacement, and the BF350 is a high-power model with a 5,000 cc V8 engine and 350 horsepower, yet it is quiet and vibration-free, and offers top-class fuel economy.

In addition, the BF350 is as compact as the BF250 with a V6 engine in width to save space when installing two or three outboard motors on a boat, in the market where multiple outboard motors are used.

In addition, the BF350 offers both high environmental performance and economic efficiency.

The development of the BF350 was based on the benchmark of having a cruising range sufficient for a round trip of approximately 230 km (from Miami, at the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula in the United States, to Grand Bahama in the Bahamas), and running on regular gasoline, the BF350’s high fuel efficiency helps reduce the total fuel cost.

Future of Honda’s New Outboard Motors

Achieving carbon neutrality on the water is an important theme that Honda’s marine business is boldly addressing. Honda believes that electric propulsion is best suited for small vessels, and since August 2023, has been conducting tests with prototype electric propulsion systems on Horikawa pleasure boats in Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture, to verify its durability and marketability.

For medium- and large-size vessels, Honda is challenging the realization of carbon neutrality for a new era through various studies, including the use of carbon neutral fuel and further improvement of fuel efficiency.

Honda is also working to develop technologies that will make it easier and more comfortable for boat operators. Specifically, a 360-degree multi-view camera system that displays images of the surroundings on a display, enabling instant confirmation of the vessel’s behavior and peripheral information, and a fully automatic boat-handling system that applies this multi-view camera system for smooth and automatic pier-landing that reduces stress on the operator when approaching a pier, even for the first time. Honda also aims to expand the joy of freedom of movement through automatic trailer loading systems that steer and load boats onto trailers for transportation. These efforts go beyond mere environmental impact reduction and open the way to a sustainable future of water transportation.

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Furthermore, Honda plans to install a solar power generation system at its Hosoe Outboard Motor Plant in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, where outboard motors are manufactured, in 2024, and begin operation of a lithium-ion storage battery system in 2025. This is expected to enable the plant to meet approximately 50% of its electricity needs from renewable energy sources.

Honda’s marine business will continue to pursue the creation of environmentally friendly products while opening up new possibilities for water transportation.

This is because it is the only way to stay true to Soichiro Honda’s principle that “watercraft should not pollute the water.”