Toyota looks to green its painting process
There's more than one way to paint a car. We've featured models with cans and brushes, the option of going sans paint entirely and we've even seen electricity generated from leftover paint fumes. Of course, automakers strive for the highest paint quality possible. The processes they come up with are often very time-consuming and cover many different steps, so it's not all that surprising that Toyota would find a way to both streamline and green up the process a bit. At its Tsutsumi plant in Japan, which is already equipped with solar panels and a rooftop garden, the automaker is currently testing its new "3-Wet" system, which cuts down one entire drying oven. According to Toyota, a 15-percent reduction in energy can be realized using this new process, which is substantial, considering that it estimates as much as 24 percent of the total energy necessary to create one of its cars comes from the painting process.[Source: The Detroit News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
why not the LS2LS7? 2:17PM (7/19/2008)
No, 24 percent of the energy required to make one of their new cars isn't expended painting it. That would mean if you looked at all the power cables going into all the plants that make all the parts and subassemblies in their cars, 1/4 of them would be going straight to the painting booths at final assembly. This simply isn't the case.
They clearly aren't counting the total energy expenditure. I bet they spend more energy smelting the aluminum used in the car than painting the car.
I'm thinking they are only looking at the energy used by the final assembly plant. Not the energy for other plants that make the parts or the materials. Or the energy used to transport them around.
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tankd0g 9:55PM (7/19/2008)
What does Toyota care about the energy expended by third party suppliers? If they factored in the nickel content of the Prius battery, the Prius would be worse than Hitler.
why not the LS2LS7? 12:58PM (7/20/2008)
Why do they care?
One could just as easily ask why they care how much energy their own plants use?
I think the answer is obvious. Because they pay for it. The energy cost of everything is built into its selling price, and so as a buyer of all these parts and subassemblies, Toyota pays for all the energy used to build the entire car.
Reducing the energy used by their suppliers would cut the cost of their cars equally as effectively as cutting the energy used in final assembly.
The nickel thing is bullshit. Go investigate before repeating nonsense.