New Methodology of Life Cycle Assessment for Clean Energy Vehicle and New Car Model Mazda Motor Corporation

Format:

Conference/Event

Author/Creator:

Nitta, Nitta, author.

Contributor:

Moriguchi, Yoshihisa

Conference Name:

SAE 2011 World Congress & Exhibition (2011-04-12 : Detroit, Michigan, United States)

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Warrendale, PA SAE International 2011

Summary:

Mazda announced that all customers who purchase Mazda cars areprovided with the joy of driving and excellent environmental andsafety performance under slogan of "SustainableZoom-Zoom" long-term vision for technology development.The purpose of this study is to develop a new approach of LifeCycle Assessment (abbreviated to LCA) to be applied to clean energyvehicles and new car models. The improvement of both environmentalperformance, e.g., fuel consumption, exhaust emissions, vehicleweight reduction, and LCA that is a useful methodology to assessthe environmental load of automobiles for their lifecycles hasbecome more important.LCA by inventory analysis, for RX-8 Hydrogen RE as a rotaryengine vehicle used hydrogen as clean energy, was carried out anddisclosed the world for the first time. LCA for new Mazda 5 wascarried out as the portfolio of all models, previously only thespecific model equipped with fuel efficiency device based onISO14040. The majority of data on production of materials weretaken from GaBi4 database. The data on production of parts andthese assemblies were taken from in-house.As a result, lifecycle environmental load of the RX-8 HydrogenRE depends on production methods of hydrogen fuel. The RX-8Hydrogen RE using by-product hydrogen of caustic soda with leastenvironmental load was verified to reduce 57% of carbon dioxide(abbreviated to CO₂) compared with the one using gasoline fuel. Thelifecycle environmental load of the new Mazda 5 depends on fuelefficiency and emission gas purification. The new Mazda 5 wasverified to reduce 14% of CO₂ compared with the predecessor.In this study, LCA of the RX-8 Hydrogen RE in the Japanesemarket and of the new Mazda 5 in the European market were carriedout. Further studies for other markets are necessary as expansionof these delivered markets

Notes:

Vendor supplied data

Publisher Number:

2011-01-0851

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license