Toyota Prius and it's environmental impact

Current Environmental Impact

The Toyota Prius was the first mass produced hybrid electric car. To date, there are few cars that can beat the environment impact of a hybrid car, particularly the Prius. The Prius emits 25% - 30% less CO₂ than that of an equivalent petrol car (Life Cycle Assessment of Vehicle Fuels and Technologies page 22) over its whole life cycle. From "Channel 4 Fact Check: How green is my Prius?", they state that only 2% of the Prius' CO₂ emissions come from the actual burning of fuel compared to 80% of that of a normal car. The other 98% is made up of gathering raw materials, production, transport, maintenance and disposal.

Overall, the Prius is more environmentally friendly than its non-hybrid equivalents. It has a much smaller carbon foot print and is not adding to the cauldron of greenhouse gasses as much as other cars. Evidentially, having a hybrid car does not solve the world's crude oil supply (which will run out eventually) but uses the crude oil, petrol, in a more effective and efficient way. At the end of the day, it is still a car but is much greener than most of the cars on the road at the moment.

Supply Chain Principle to Improve Environmental Impact

From Wikipedia (Toyota: Toyota Philosophy), it states that Toyota uses Lean Manufacturing and Just in Time Production in its manufacturing process. In fact, Toyota has developed this further and have a process that grows on these foundations, the Toyota Production System. Their system allows Toyota to build their cars, including the Prius, as fast as possible, as higher quality as possible and as cheap as possible. Although their system works well for them, there are a lot of extra deliveries to their production plants as they are using Just in Time Production. This means that as soon as an item reaches a certain level, it will automatically be re-ordered and delivered. If the system only orders enough to fill half a truck, then at the end of the month or even year, there would have been twice as many deliveries for a particular item. Even though the trucks belong to the supplier and it is they who are causing the extra emissions from the deliveries, it is down to Toyota to place orders in such as way that they are utilising the full available space on the delivery trucks. This would not only help the environment, but Toyota themselves would not be paying for all of the extra unnecessary deliveries.

Product Design Principle to Improve Environmental Impact

The Prius was built upon the design principle minimizing information content of design. By using this principle, they are able to manufacture a vehicle that is friendlier to the environment but doesn't require any specialist knowledge to operate. This is because the Prius is controlled just like any other petrol guzzling car available at the moment. The Prius' on board computer deals with which engine to use, when to recharge the battery etc.

Toyota also required the Prius to be better value for money, after all a hybrid version costs on average £3,000 more than its petrol counterpart. They needed it to appeal to the mass market to that they would buy it. One of the Toyota Prius' biggest selling feature is probably the low carbon emission rate and the low miles to the gallon rate. Here is a comparison of the Toyota Prius against other similar cars.

Toyota Prius II - 65.7mpg - 104g/km (Figures from What Car)
Mazda 2 - 54.3mpg - 125g/km (Figures from Auto Planet)
Peugeot 407 - 57.7mpg - 129g/km (Figures from Auto Planet)
Renault Laguna - 37.2mpg - 180g/km (Figures from Auto Planet)

The best figures are bold and you can see that the Prius is best in both categories. Using the current petrol price of 98.6 (Petrol Prices) we can work out roughly how much it would cost an owner of the above cars to travel 10,000 miles.

The formula is as following: (((10,000 / mpg) x 4.546) x 0.986) = £cost Where 4.546 is the number of litres in a gallon and 0.986 is the price of petrol. What the formula does it works out how many gallons it will take to travel 10,000 miles, turns that figure into litres and multiply that by the price of petrol and we have our result. The results are below:

Toyota Prius II - (((10,000 / 65.7) x 4.546) x 0.986) = £682.24
Mazda 2 - (((10,000 / 54.3) x 4.546) x 0.986) = £825.48
Peugeot 407 - (((10,000 / 57.7) x 4.546) x 0.986) = £776.84
Renault Laguna - (((10,000 / 37.2) x 4.546) x 0.986) = £1204.94

Again the Prius has the lowest cost meaning it is the best value for money and it uses less petrol while doing so, therefore it is not affecting the environment in as such a negative way like the Renault Laguna. This is due to the Toyota engineering creating a hybrid system that is incredibly efficient. This appeals to those who are very conscious of their impact on the environment and justifies the increased price.

References and Resources:

Auto Planet - Mazda 2 (n.d). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://www.autoplanet.co.uk/new-mazda-mazda2-5261-722-40892-0.asp

Auto Planet - Peugeot 407(n.d). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://www.autoplanet.co.uk/new-peugeot-407-7104-773-29340-0.asp

Auto Planet - Renault Laguna (n.d). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://www.autoplanet.co.uk/new-reanult-laguna-8219-295-40950-0.asp

Channel 4 FactCheck: how green is my Prius? (August 16 2007). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/environment/factcheck+how+green+is+my+prius/683192

Life Cycle Assessment of Vehicle Fuels and Technologies (March 2006). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://www.ecolane.co.uk/content/dcs/Camden_LCA_Report_FINAL_10_03_2006.pdf

Petrol Prices (May 20 2009). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://www.petrolprices.com/

Toyota Development and Design (n.d). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/environmental_rep/03/kaihatu08.html

Toyota Prius Green Report (June 16 2003). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/k_forum/tenji/pdf/pgr_e.pdf

Toyota Prius on Wikipedia (Last Modified May 21 2009). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius

Toyota Production System (Last Modified May 20 2009). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System

Toyota Wikipedia (Last Modified May 21 2009). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota

What Car: Going green can save you cash! (March 19 2009). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://www.whatcar.com/news-article.aspx?NA=238838&EL=3318400

What Car: Toyota Prius Review (n.d). Retrieved May 21 2009, from http://www.whatcar.com/car-review-costs.aspx?RT=630&ED=44617&U=0