Meanwhile Honda, Toyota’s main rival in the production of hybrid cars, has also been an innovator in lowering energy usage and emissions. Each year sees the firm publish a set of fresh goals and, just as importantly, previous results, as part of its ongoing ‘Green Factory’ initiative.

 

For fiscal year 2009 the company set as a target of a 27% cut in energy usage for its five main Japanese plants (Saitama, Tochigi, Hamamatsu, Suzuka and Kumamoto), though using 1991 levels as the baseline.

 

Hyundai now employs heat recovery devices at the two plants monitored by its Total Energy Management System. They collect high temperature waste heat generated during the painting process to produce steam and, claims Hyundai, have cut energy usage for steam production by 50%.

 

Smelting activities have also had the energy management treatment. The company has switched from parallel resonance to serial resonance for the furnaces at material plants.