FAA delays 777 certification until 2023
Federal regulators have indicated they likely won’t certify Boeing’s next airliner until 2023 because of questions about changes the aircraft manufacturer is making in software and hardware on a new version of the two-aisle 777 jet.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s concerns are just the latest setback for Boeing, which originally predicted the plane would enter airline service in 2020.
Boeing shares fell more than 3.5% on Monday afternoon.
An FAA official listed 11 concerns in a May 13 letter to Boeing that surfaced over the weekend. Among them: a Dec. 8 flight in which the plane’s nose turned up or down without pilots directing it to do so.
Another Boeing plane, the 737 Max, suffered two fatal crashes after an automated system on the plane pushed the nose down, and pilots were unable to regain control. Boeing had to overhaul the system.
The FAA official, Ian Won, the acting manager for safety at the agency’s Boeing oversight office, said the FAA is also concerned that late changes Boeing proposes to software and hardware on the 777X could introduce new, inadvertent problems.
“Based on our assessment, the FAA considers that the aircraft is not yet ready” for a key step in the process, he told the company. Won said the FAA might have to increase the number of test flights.
Honda now plans to build electric cars later in decade
DETROIT – Although General Motors will build Honda’s first two fully electric vehicles for North America, the Japanese automaker plans to change course and manufacture its own later this decade.
Company officials say they’re developing their own EV architecture, and after two GM-made EVs go on sale in 2024, Honda will start building its own.
“It’s absolutely our intention to produce in our factories,” Honda of America Executive Vice President Dave Gardner said, adding that Honda has developed battery manufacturing expertise from building gas-electric hybrids. “We absolutely intend to utilize that resource.”
Honda and GM have been partners on hydrogen fuel cell and electric vehicles.
Earlier this year they announced that GM would build one Honda SUV and one Acura SUV using its Ultium-branded electric vehicle architecture and battery system.
The company said the Honda SUV would be named the Prologue, and that both SUVs will have bodies, interiors and driving characteristics designed by Honda.
But after those two, Honda plans its own manufacturing for most of a series of electric vehicles, although it hasn’t determined if it will use GM components.
Gardner says sales projections for the Prologue are between 40,000 and 150,000 per year, but he didn’t say when those numbers would be reached.
In April, the company said it plans to phase out all of its gasoline-powered vehicles in North America by 2040, making it the latest major automaker with a goal of becoming carbon neutral.
Honda wants 40% of North American vehicle sales to be battery or fuel-cell powered by 2030, and 80% of all vehicles sold to run on batteries or hydrogen by 2035.
Honda initially had planned to meet stricter government fuel economy and pollution standards by adding hybrids to improve internal combustion engines.
From wire reports