The public is now conscious of environmental issues that have increased. However, the automobile industry as a whole must undertake this issue immediately. To paraphrase a segment of Richard Porters book "Economics at the wheel," International automotive manufacturing is dominated by a fairly small number of large producers. The automobile industry is the leading manufacturing enterprise in the world. It is also one of the major industrial systems that use many resources. The automobile industries in Europe and the U.S. use approximately 46 million tons of material annually to produce 24 million vehicles. Today, a vehicle consists of

In the C&EN article, Wolfgang Ziebart, director of BMW's 3-series line of cars states that "the basic problem encountered by the electric car is the limited amount of energy a battery is able to store and provide as drive power" (Freemantle 29).

To paraphrase the National research council, nearly all European countries have introduced "End-of-Life Vehicle" (ELV) policies with targets for the increased reuse and recycling of ELV parts and materials, and the reduction of waste disposed in landfills (par. 26).

Science alone should not undertake the responsibility of providing solutions to our environmental problems. As Ian Boustead said in the C&EN article, "At some point, policy has to step in. That's either politics, or it's company policy" (Freemantle 25).

Opportunities for environmental progress exist during each life-cycle stage of an automobile. I would like to focus on regulation, policies, agreements, and design improvements that influence either one stage or the entire life cycle. To summarize information I obtained from the United States General Accounting Office, the U.S. taxes on gasoline are considerably lower than in European countries. This results in much lower gasoline prices in the U.S. than in any European country. The USA relies on a regulation to discourage the manufacture and sale of fuel-inefficient vehicles. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) was introduced in 1975 requiring that producers of both American and imported cars achieve certain decreed fuel-economy standards on a fleet-wide basis (sec. 2).

The most important part of the total life cycle is recycling of the used up vehicle. First the dismantling of things that are easy to take out and worth high value occurs. These things are sold to the used parts market. To paraphrase the description of this process given in the C&EN article, lubricants are often recycled as oil. There are several items removed that contain rare metal such as platinum. The left over heap is crushed and shredded to recover the scrap steel, aluminum, copper, and zinc (29). There are only a handful of manufactures that participate in improving the recyclability of their products. However, one cannot judge the environmental performance of a product solely by its recyclability.

The objective of the total life-cycle theory is to commit to a cleaner environment by bettering technology. The product cannot be too noncompetitive or expensive to buy. To summarize a concept stated by Phillip J. Mazziotti (an automotive consultant and SAE treasurer quoted in the C&EN article), there are five different areas of concern to the automobile industry in regards to the total life cycle of an automobile. To start with is the Design, testing, and development of the product. Following is the manufacture of the product. The third is the operation of the product. The fourth area of concern has to deal with the maintenance of the vehicle. This step also includes the use of life-prolonging techniques to keep the product running. The final concern deals with taking apart, recycling, remaking, and eventually disposing of the products that cannot be remade (27).

Beside the painting and coating operations, the metal casting operations are the main manufacturing operations where air emissions occur. Approximately 56% of all releases and transfers originat

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Approximate Word count = 2264
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)