Caution on car redesign call

Press, 1 March 1989, Page 47

Caution on car redesign call

PA Auckland Calls from Sweden to redesign cars to prevent a global pollution disaster have been greeted cau-

tiously by the New Zealand motor industry. Car assemblers in New Zealand have little input into the products they sell, which are largely developed in Japan or Australia.

The director-general of Sweden’s National Energy Administration, Hans Rode, said during a recent

New Zealand visit that

more should be spent on new engine designs or different ways of running cars on fuels which did not harm the environment.

New Zealand motor companies say the type of cars they sell are dictated by the fuels available from the Marsden Point oil refinery. “There are models we would have liked to intro-

duce,” said General Motors’ public affairs manager, Mr lan Stronach.

“But the engines

needed lead-free fuel. Our 91 octane low-lead petrol wasn’t good enough.” Other motors designed for emission control equipment could not be used for the same reason.

Toyota’s public affairs manager, Mr Andy Cumming, said the international motor industry had made significant gains in pollution control in the last decade.

“It’s a continuing process of improvement. We won’t suddenly see a pol-lution-free engine,” he said.

Motor vehicles were creating less pollution than 10 years ago, he said.

The local motor industry does not have research and development facilities because there are not the resources to back it, said Ford’s public affairs manager, Mr Russell Scoular.

“We’re an assembly industry, not a manufacturing one. All the engineering is done at the source country.”