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AutoWeek | Published 12/04/06, 10:51 pm et

TOKYO -- Honda's Ridgeline, Pilot and Odyssey and Acura's MDX are candidates to get a clean V-6 diesel engine that Honda Motor Co. is developing, says CEO Takeo Fukui.

Fukui declined to specify which Honda or Acura vehicles will get a diesel engine. But he identified those four light trucks as "the Honda products that would need this kind of technology."

Honda will sell a clean 2.2-liter four-cylinder diesel in 2009. A V-6 diesel using the same technology will follow.

Honda says the diesel engines will meet tough new U.S rules requiring that diesel emissions essentially be as clean as gasoline-engine emissions.

During an interview with Automotive News, Fukui also said:

Honda turbos are possible. The Acura RDX SUV, which went on sale in August, is the first Honda or Acura vehicle in the United States that uses a turbocharger. But although Honda aims to differentiate Acura cars and trucks from Honda models, Fukui rejects the idea that turbos might be limited to Acuras.

"We don't have any intention to keep turbos just dedicated to Acura," he says. "In the future, it's possible that they will be adopted in Honda products as well."

No major Mexican expansion is planned. If Honda needs more North American vehicle production capacity beyond the plant it plans to build in Indiana, expansion in the United States is more likely than in Mexico.

Honda has not yet broken ground on its Indiana plant. Production is expected to begin in 2009. Its plant in El Salto Jalisco, Mexico, is by far the smallest of its car or truck plants in North America. It builds about 30,000 Accords a year.

"It could be possible to expand the Mexican plant just slightly," say to 50,000 or 60,000, Fukui says. "But I don't think we will ever make that a 200,000-unit plant."

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