Honda Would Put Its E-Compressor On Everything If It Could
Patents show the technology applied to various engine configurations
Honda is continuing to develop its V3R engine and its electronically controlled compressor, and we’re hoping it will result in the production version of the prototype it showed off last year at EICMA.
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And while a V3R engine configuration would be cool (that’s two cylinders in the front and the third angled 75 degrees backwards), the E-Compressor might be more intriguing. An industry first if/when Honda puts it into production, the technology uses electricity to spin the compressor, providing near-instant boost compared to the lag from a conventional turbocharger. Honda says the e-compressor gives its 900cc prototype (pictured below) a level of performance on par with a 1,200cc motorcycle.
What’s interesting is that there’s nothing restricting the E-Compressor to just the V3R engine. Theoretically, the technology could be applied to any other engine configuration. Honda’s come to the same conclusion, as it has filed several patents applying an E-Compressor to various existing engine configurations. These include inline-Fours, the NC750’s forward-tilted parallel-Twin, and the Gold Wing’s flat-Six.
As with most modern motorcycle industry patents these days, the challenge addressed by each of these patent filings is packaging, as in, figuring out the best place to position the compressor and the motor driving the impeller in between areas already occupied by the airbox, fuel tank, throttle bodies, and engine.
It’s not surprising that Honda would try to adopt the technology across its various engines. We’ve already seen Honda try to do the same thing with DCT (employed on 1,084cc and 745cc Twins and a 1,833cc flat-Six) and e-Clutch (now available on 286cc Singles, 471cc and 755cc parallel-Twins, and inline-Fours in 649cc, 502cc and 399cc displacements.)
Of course, it has to be stated that patents don’t always lead to a production motorcycle; other factors come into play, such as cost efficiency, profitability, and, most vitally, whether it will actually work as intended in real-world applications.
We still expect Honda will debut its E-Compresson on a production version of the V3R 900 concept, possibly as soon as this fall at EICMA. Just don’t be surprised if you see it applied to other, existing motorcycles in the next few years as well.
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Dennis has been a part of the Motorcycle.com team since 2008, and through his tenure, has developed a firm grasp of industry trends, and a solid sense of what's to come. A bloodhound when it comes to tracking information on new motorcycles, if there's a new model on the horizon, you'll probably hear about it from him first.
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The V3 prototype shown above looks very detailed and complete. It even has the bulging muffler now common to bikes on the showroom floor.
Loosing up dude. Everyone knows RoadKill used gas blowers. They aren't as high tech as Mother Honda. FYI....... It's all in the name, RoadKill.