Mazda co-develops new, friendlier paint system
Mazda Motors continues pursuing its "green" objective (see
here and
here for other examples).
This
time the company is saving the environment with the development
of a new paint coating system.
The newly developed "e-coating" reduces the presence of such pollutants as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions while the vehicle is being painted. The system, according to the company, will reduce
VOC emissions by 32 tons, CO2 emissions by 8.8 tons per year, and amount of basecoat materials used by more than ten
percent compared to last year.
Another description can also be found
here.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris 12:28AM (12/19/2005)
yay.. so that explains why my 1994 Mazda B4000's paint looks better than my 2003 Mazda Protege5's paint, and why my roommates 2005 Mazda3's paint is already starting to look crappy.
I'm sorry, green is nice and all but if I'm buying a car I want it to stay looking new.
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mark 12:28AM (12/19/2005)
I mean, having a shiny car is a great tradeoff for doing nothing to leave a smaller footprint. And what's Mazda's production compared to other manufacturers? Imagine if the volume guys used similar technology.. Those tonnage figures would be huge.
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kevin 12:28AM (12/19/2005)
I've heard Ford is helping the environment by wasting less paint in the painting process. I'll bet Mazda already uses Ford's process and it will only be a matter of time before Ford uses Mazda's.
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Justin Lutz 12:28AM (12/19/2005)
From Ford's website: "Also within the Rouge Center, Ford is testing a system that generates electricity from paint fumes. The Fumes-to-Fuel System converts the volatile organic compounds found in paint fumes into hydrogen fuel for fuel cells. The electricity produced by the fuel cells will then be sent to the plant's energy grid."
The F-150 is built there, doesn't get much more "volume" than that...
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Billson Barnes 12:28AM (12/19/2005)
Yeah, Mazda's current "enviromentally friendly" paint system does need work.
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Robert Aitchison 12:28AM (12/19/2005)
My 2004 Mazda3 has this (or maybe it's a different ill concieved eco-friendly paint system) and it's just terrible.
As I understand it the new process involves wet on wet spraying of the different paint coats. The downside is tha tihs results in a single, thick coat of paint instead of multiple thinner coats.
When your car enounters ordinary road hazards (rocks, etc.) instead of chipping off the top layer of paint now you chip down to th primer.
Within the first 6 months of me owning the 3 the whole front of the car looked worse than my 2000 Focus did after more than 3 years, despite identical driving habits & conditions.
Had I known how bad the paint was I would have defintely invested in a clear bra but now it looks like I do all my driving on a gravel road (at 50Mph) so there isn't much point.
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