Toyota develops painting process that uses far less energy

Toyota’s Tsutsumi plant has solar panels, grass growing on the roof and ivy crawling on walls to be as green in production as the Japanese automaker’s reputation for mileage is exemplified in its Prius hybrid.

Under Toyota Motor’s latest drive to make its famous lean production even leaner, it has also achieved a breakthrough in technology for painting vehicles, a senior executive said recently.
The multistep paint job, which includes pretreatment, several coatings, drying and sealing, takes up 24 percent of energy use in manufacturing, according to Toyota.

Takeshi Uchiyamada, the executive overseeing production, said the new method called “3-Wet” dropped one “drying oven” step from the previous three.

The elimination in the multistep process was able to reduce by 15 percent the energy needs compared to old-style painting.

“Our production has grown over the last decade so much the energy required to manufacture each and every vehicle has also grown considerable overall,” Uchiyamada told The Associated Press recently.

Ford Motor Co. has said it has developed similar ecological painting technology.

Interntional Herald Tribune