Japanese vehicle manufacturers always know how to make their cars different. After catering to eye appeal and feel, this time round they are doing everything to put their cars on top, appealing to prospective car buyer's sense of smell. They want people to drive out new cars without the overpowering odorous awareness of the “newness” of the car's plastic, paint and upholstery.
Seeking to successfully make their vehicles pleasantly “new” minus a nauseous reminder of a cocktail of toxic fumes, the Japanese manufacturers have their task chalked out in trying to figures ways to tone down the fumes. As always being the earliest to set benchmarks for vehicles, their pursuit of vehicular cabin concentrations of toxic fumes guided by government guidelines may spur European and US automakers to follow suit in making “new car fumes” an auto-safety issue. Only earlier the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) agreed to match the country's Health Ministry guidelines for air quality in homes by 2007, with the cabin levels of 13 compounds inclusive of the believably cancer-causing styrene and formaldehyde. This agreement came after tests suggested that some vehicle models manufactured by the nation's top three manufacturers failed to meet the health standards.
Toyota Motor Corp's Paul Nolasco said, “The industry in Japan as a whole has recognized the need for this and is coordinating efforts, cutting down on the things that lead to these smells is only something that can be better for you”. Volatile organic compounds or VOCs are known to be the main contributors of fumes in new-cars, which are largely chemicals leaching from glues, paints, polyurethane foams, vinyls and plastics used to make the car interiors swanky. The compounds are known to trigger nausea, migraines, headaches, throat irritations and sometimes drowsiness, with prolonged exposure suspected but-not-proven of cancer triggering capabilities.
But given that recent reports have suggested that these toxic fumes are sickness-building like are common problems like water seepage in walls, carpets and building fixtures or mildew on soft furnishing and clothes, Japanese vehicle manufacturers agree that getting into a new car transiently exposes people to fumes higher than the acceptable limits elsewhere. Though the problem dissipates in six months, Steve Brown, lead author of a 2001 study by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization believes, “New car interiors have much higher VOC levels than buildings”. He adds that “Ultimately, what we need are cars with interior materials that produce lower emissions”.
Already Japan's top five auto makers – Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi and Mazda – have started rolling out vehicles with much lower level of VOCs than elsewhere in the world. Koji Endo, Credit Suisse First Boston's auto analyst in Tokyo says is upbeat that, “There is good potential for the Japanese to take the lead in this field… People are starting to feel that VOCs are an issue”. Currently there are no set guidelines in US for VOCs in non-industrial settings. But what maybe good for new Japanese car owners may hit the aerosol industry as the “new-car sprays” that keep the early rides bearable may lose their very purpose and albeit be a boon for the environment.
