Nissan climbs up 'green' list

Nissan is the car industry's biggest improver in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Japanese carmaker Nissan has received worldwide recognition from inside and outside the motoring industry.

Its 3.5-litre V6 engine, the VQ series unit which powers the Maxima sedan and 350Z sports car in New Zealand, has been named one of the world's top 10 engines for the 11th year in a row.

And the carmaker itself has been listed by an American environmental group as the industry's biggest improver in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The V6 is the only engine in the world to have been placed in the top 10 every year since industry information specialist Ward's Communications began its annual "10-best" ranking in 1995.

Nissan builds about 500,000 examples of the all-alloy unit at its Iwaki engine plant in Japan each year.

The V6 is renowned for its strong free-revving performance and bountiful supply of torque. It produces 170kW (227bhp) and 333Nm in the Maxima and 206kW (276bhp) and 363Nm in the 350Z. It will also power the all-wheel-drive Murano sports utility vehicle due here next year.

The environmental report by the Union of Concerned Scientists said that of the six biggest carmakers in the US, Nissan had the largest improvement in reducing emissions. Nissan also registered the second-largest improvement in reducing smog.

It said Japanese car companies continued to make the cleanest-burning vehicles, but carmakers generally were doing a poor job in lowering emissions that contributed to global warming.

Honda got the highest ranking in the group's 2004 report, which focused on vehicles sold in 2003. Reports are issued every two years.

Honda vehicles produced less than half the pollution of the industry average, the report said. General Motors ranked lowest with a fleet that produced a third more pollution than average.

Nissan ranked second and Toyota third, followed by Ford and DaimlerChrysler. Nissan and DaimlerChrysler moved up from their positions in the group's 2002 report.

DaimlerChrysler showed a modest improvement in the fuel economy of its trucks, which made up a substantial portion of its sales in the US.

The six carmakers produced more than 90 per cent of emissions in the US, the group said. Researchers measured performance on two types of emissions - smog-forming pollution and carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas linked to global warming - and ranked carmakers by an average of the two.

David Friedman, research director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Clean Vehicles Programme and an author of the report, said US federal and state anti-smog regulations had forced carmakers to improve smog emissions. But carbon dioxide emissions hadn't shown much improvement.

"In terms of heat-trapping gas emissions, carmakers have been running on the spot for almost the last 20 years," Friedman said.

"The industry is more or less ignoring global warming when you look at the products they're putting on the road."

Friedman said Honda had been a leader in reducing carbon dioxide emissions but had fallen behind as its truck sales in the US increased without improved technology.

GM moved from the best of the biggest domestic carmakers in the group's 2000 report to the worst. GM was the only carmaker whose vehicles emitted more smog and carbon dioxide emissions in the 2003 model year than two years earlier, the report said.

GM spokeswoman Joanne Krell said the report didn't take into account the mix of vehicles each company offered. For example, Honda had no trucks that compared in size to GM's largest models, such as the huge Hummer H2, with a curb weight of more than three tonnes.

But Friedman said that, even when compared to other companies with large fleets, GM was behind.

Meantime, carmakers are trying to block tough new emissions standards adopted by California regulators in September.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, representing GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, BMW, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Volkswagen and Toyota, argued in their lawsuit in California that the standards, which could set a precedent for other states, must by law be the responsibility of the US Federal Government.

"Federal law is designed to ensure a consistent fuel economy programme across the country," said Fred Webber, president of AAM.

California is the first state to pass regulations that limit emissions of the heat-trapping gas tied to global warming. The AAM said the law was an attempt to force carmakers to build more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The regulations are to be phased in beginning in 2009.

The California Air Resources Board said they would cut exhaust emissions in cars and light trucks by 25 per cent and in larger trucks and sport-utility vehicles by 18 per cent.

They would require carmakers to use better air-conditioners, more efficient transmissions and smaller engines. Manufacturers argued the result was a hypothetical vehicle that didn't exist and couldn't practically be built.

The alliance said complying with the California standards would increase the cost of a new vehicle by an average of $US3000 ($4200).

It also said the regulations would reduce consumer choices because carmakers would probably dump vehicles with higher emissions, such as full-size pick-up trucks with large engines, the most popular vehicle in the US.