Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Kaoru Hatanaka

Yukio Miyamaru

Shigeo Kawada

Osamu Suzuki

Yasuo Shibata

Syunichi Miyagishi

Masahiko Ikegami

Toru Takeda

Tetsuo Yamagata

Chiaki Kumagai

Kunihiko Tanaka

Sumitaka Ogawa

Satoshi Honda

Hajime Tabata

Yoshihiro Nakazawa

Atsushi Yonehana

Shinji Furuta

Akihiko Yamashita

Tsuneo Sekiguchi

Tomohide Shimizu

Atsushi Otsu

Mamoru Kokubu

Yoichi Taniguchi

Satoru Suzuki

Tooru Hasegawa

Hideyuki Tanabe

Miyamaru Yukio

Masao Tatsuta

An electric vehicle has simple structure allowing effective cooling of on-board batteries collectively disposed within a swing arm. The electric vehicle includes a swing arm that houses an electric motor that is swingably mounted to a vehicle body and drives a drive wheel WR, and batteries of a substantially rectangular parallelepiped. A wide case portion that houses the batteries is formed at a position toward a pivot shaft of the swing arm. Also, a protruding portion for forming an air reservoir space above the batteries is formed at a roof portion of the wide case portion. The batteries are disposed side by side in a front-rear direction of the vehicle body. The protruding portion, in a side view of the vehicle body, is substantially convex protruding upward across the batteries.

Electric vehicle

A control device for a creep speed advance and creep speed backing up of an electric vehicle. A mode switch provided with an operating section can be operated in a longitudinal direction and can be operated leftward from an intermediate part. The operating section is automatically returned to a stop position in which a speed zero instruction is output to a motor when not being operated by return springs. When the operating section is pushed forward, a creep speed advance mode can be selected and when the operating section is pulled backward, a creep speed backing up mode can be selected. To clearly discriminate a position of the operating section among the creep speed advance mode, the creep speed backing up mode and a normal mode, a stopper is arranged between the stop position and the normal mode so that larger force is required to operate the operating section.

Control device for electric vehicle

A vehicle is provided with a shift control device including a rolling angular velocity sensor for detecting a rolling angular velocity of a component of the vehicle, and a steering-angle angular velocity sensor for detecting a steering-angle angular velocity of a handlebar of the vehicle. The shift control device is operable to inhibit shifting of a gear ratio of a continuously variable transmission during rolling operation of the vehicle when detection signals from the rolling angular velocity sensor and the steering-angle angular velocity sensor respectively are equal to or greater than predetermined reference values.

Shift control device for vehicle and vehicle incorporating same

A vehicular tilt-angle detecting apparatus includes a steering-angle sensor, a vehicle speed sensor, a lateral-G sensor, a turning-radius calculation unit, a base tilt-angle calculation unit, a transient tilt-angle calculation unit, and a transient tilt angle calculation unit. The turning-radius calculation unit determines a turning radius corresponding to a steering angle based on a predetermined relationship between a steering angle and a turning radius. The base tilt-angle calculation unit calculates a current instantaneous tilt angle of a vehicle body during short-term steady-state turning based on the turning radius and the vehicle speed. The transient tilt-angle calculation unit corrects the initial calculated tilt angle of the vehicle body based on a transient turning radius when a variation of the steering angle is equal to or greater than a predetermined value. When the variation is less than the predetermined value, the transient tilt-angle calculation unit calculates the lateral-G corrected transient tilt angle.

Tilt-angle detecting method and apparatus for a motorcycle

A motor driven stand device for a motorcycle has motors for driving stands for self-sustaining a vehicle body in a parking state in which a rear wheel is lifted and in a stopping state in which the rear wheel is contacted with the ground. A stopping switch actuates the motor for self-sustaining the vehicle body in the stopping state. A parking switch gives an instruction to the motor for self-sustaining the vehicle body in the parking state. The stopping switch is arranged in a right handlebar grip. The parking switch is arranged in a stand step and/or a grab rail. An automatic stopping control unit rotates the stands by a predetermined amount in response to an on operation of the stopping switch in an automatic stopping mode and rotates the stands for the stopping state while an on operation of the stopping switch is maintained in a non-automatic stopping mode.

Motor driven stand device for motorcycle

A control unit for a motor-assisted vehicle such as a bicycle is disclosed that effectively provides an assist drive power to a motor-assisted bicycle during a period of initial pedaling or startup on an upward slope or at the time of acceleration. A first detection signal is outputted when a vehicle speed is equal to or less than a predetermined vehicle speed. A second detection signal is outputted when acceleration is equal to or more than a predetermined value on the basis of a change in the amount of the vehicle speed. A road surface inclination is determined from a map on the basis of a ratio between an actual running resistance and a flat road running resistance. A coefficient K is retrieved form the map corresponding to either the first detection signal or the second detection signal to increase the assist power from the map on the basis of the vehicle speed. The coefficient K is inputted into an assist power calculating portion, and the required assist drive power is calculated.

Control unit for motor-assisted bicycle

To provide a battery rental system that is extremely convenient and economical, and that is always stable. The battery rental system includes unmanned automatic battery rental stations, a communication system, a central processing station, electrically assisted bicycle batteries, and ID cards. A user merely inserts the ID card into the battery rental system and the central processing station automatically charges the user for removing a battery from the battery rental system.

Battery rental system

A controlling apparatus for a hybrid car can arbitrarily select whether the hybrid car should be powered principally with an engine or principally with a generator-motor, depending upon driving conditions.

Controlling apparatus for a hybrid car

Battery re-charger for motor-assisted vehicle

A wheelchair includes an upper structure A and lower structure B which can be freely assembled and separated. Upper structure A includes a seat, back rest, seat rail, cross member, cross member and a subframe. Electrical equipment including a control unit and battery, etc., is housed inside a housing mounted on the bottom part of seat. A motor is supported under the cross member. The lower structure includes the left and right pair portions of a main frame, front wheels, drive wheels and hand rims. Upper structure A can be separated and removed from lower structure B by folding down the back rest and removing the upper structure A. The output axis is removed from the axle stay by moving the motor towards the center of the wheelchair body. A housing cover is fitted to the rear face of a base plate provided on a seat of the wheelchair. A freely opened and closed lid is provided for the opening provided on the front portion. A guide plate is provided on the front of the housing formed by the base plate and the housing cover. A control unit is fitted to the rear. When the lid is opened and battery is inserted from the front into housing cover and guided and supported by the guide plate, the battery simultaneously connects with the discharge connector at the side of control unit.

Electrically driven wheelchair

A field-effect transistor incorporates a diode which is disposed between a battery power source and an inverter. A rush-current suppressive starting circuit is provided in a stage anterior to the field-effect transistor. The transistor is shifted to its conducting state while the on-resistance of the transistor is gradually lowered to thereby limit a charging current to a power smoothing capacitor. In an off-state of a main switch, a charge stored in the current smoothing capacitor is released therefrom via a stabilized power circuit and a controller which is a power load to the circuit.

Power supply apparatus and method for an electric vehicle

A two-wheeled vehicle control apparatus will compute banking angle and handlebar steering angle to control the vehicle. One feature of the vehicle which is controlled is light distribution from the headlight. A dynamic center value for the headlight will be utilized in this control unless the apparatus determines this value has a low level of accuracy. The control apparatus will store certain control values for a predetermined time after the vehicle is turned off. If the vehicle is traveling in excess of a predetermined velocity, the control apparatus will modify its control of the vehicle. Further, if the velocity is less than another predetermined level and the turning of the handlebar is below a certain level, the control apparatus will stop controlling the vehicle. For example, if the vehicle is traveling over a bumpy road, the control apparatus can recognize this and accordingly modify the control of the vehicle. Finally, the control apparatus can modify the handlebar steering angle used in controlling the vehicle, if an amount of change in the steering angle exceeds a given level.

Two-wheeled vehicle control apparatus

A headlamp provided with correcting means for correcting a light distribution characteristic which is caused by an inclination of a vehicle body with respect to a road surface. An outer lens section fixed to the vehicle body is provided forwardly of a lamp body section of the projector type which is pivoted around an optical axis so as to maintain the light distribution characteristic horizontal in response to the inclination of the vehicle body, and the outer lens section has a lens cut formed thereon for diffusing a variation component of passing light to a turning direction when the car body is inclined for turning. Alternatively a light stopping plate for stopping a part of light advancing from a reflecting mirror toward a convex lens is provided at a position of a focus of the convex lens on the reflecting mirror side for tilting around an optical axis, and a bearing for tiltably supporting the light stopping plate is provided on the optical axis in a displaced relationship to the reflecting mirror side with respect to the light stopping plate.

Headlamp

An automatic turn signal cancelling apparatus for a motorized cycle, in which a signal provided from a handlebar turning angle detector is accumulated in response to a signal provided from a travel distance detector, and the cancellation of turn signal is made on the basis of comparisons of such accumulated value and the output of the turning angle detector with respective preset values, whereby a more appropriate function of cancellation of turn signal can be achieved. Further, by providing with a device for determining a turning angle center in accordance with signals from the turning angle detector and the travel distance detector, a more accurate function of cancellation of turn signal can be attained. Moreover, an easier and more reliable operation is assured by providing a compact and functional operating switch assembly.

Automatic turn signal cancelling apparatus

A flasher device flashes a selected one of a plurality of groups of indicator lamps selected by a flasher starting switch. An intermittent voltage is supplied to the selected group of indicator lamps to cause the lamps to flash. A capacitor is operatively connected to the selected group of indicator lamps and the rate of change of the voltage across the capacitor is indicative of the resistance of the selected group of indicator lamps. The frequency of the intermittent voltage supplied to the indicator lamps to flash the lamps is varied in response to the rate of change of the voltage across the capacitor. As the rate of change of voltage across the capacitor varies in relationship to the resistance of the selected group of indicator lamps, the change in the frequency of the intermittent voltage supplied the indicator lamps and thus the flash rate of the indicator lamps is representative of the resistance of the group of lamps. Thus the flash rate indicates to the operator of the vehicle when a filament has been broken. An audible announcement of the automatic reset of the flasher may also be developed.

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Saitama, Japan

Kaoru Hatanaka