Automotive Diagnostic OBD2 Scanner

An Update on 3 Automakers: Nissan, Ford, Toyota

Renault-Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn, recently said, in a speech in Washington, Nissan Motor Co. will offer a diesel version of its Maxima sedan in 2010. It will be powered by a Renault-designed engine.

While fuel prices rise, fuel economy and emissions rules would continue to toughen around the world. Ghosn explained the decision to introduce the car was partly based on this belief. He said the Maxima diesel will get an estimated 30% better fuel economy than the gasoline version.

Still to mention Nissan, according to the first-quarter 2007 model-year Global Quality Research System report by the RDA Group, the automaker together with Toyota has the same quality of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles. Some reports say consumers might not believe it. But that was revealed by the said market research firm based in Bloomfield Hills.

For every 1,000 vehicles, Ford, Lincoln, Mercury brands had 1,456 problems. Nissan and Toyota, on the other hand, had 1,457 and 1,453 problems, respectively.

The RDA Group’s report, released in the middle part of this week, surveyed more than 30,000 new owners of 2007 model-year vehicles after three months of purchasing them from the car dealers.

The survey did not include the owners of the newest 2008 vehicles, such as the Ford Edge or the new Ford Super Duty, as the research’s population size. But new vehicles like the 2007 Ford Expedition and Fusion helped float the results. Ford stopped selling the said pickup temporarily to fix a problem that caused flames to shoot out the exhaust system of some units. Ford also delayed delivery of the Edge late last year to ensure top-level quality of the product.

On a brighter side, Ford Motor Co. said this week it had reached a preliminary agreement to sell three glass plants as the automaker looks to shed its unprofitable Automotive Components Holdings group.

The company said it reached a “memorandum of understanding” with Glass Products for plants in Nashville, Tenn., Tulsa, Okla., and its Vidriocar unit in Juarez, Mexico. ACH Glass operations employ about 1,600 and supplied glass for about 2.7 million vehicles last year.

Still on a brighter side, Ford Motor Co., according to Bennie Fowler, Ford’s vice president for global quality, reduced its corporate problems by 8%, better than the overall industry improvement of 2%. He further said the company’s improved quality will have a very vital role in their future marketing strategies.

Toyota, on the other hand, seems to have problems on Georgia Emission tests.

Some reports say Toyota is soaring high in eco-friendliness with its Prius hybrid car. However, this seems to be ironic for Georgia emission testing equipment. Toyota Prius hybrids are now being required to go through emission testing to complete yearly registration procedures. But these fail the test.

The emissions test requires that a probe be placed in the vehicle’s exhaust pipe to measure the particulates emitted while the engine is idle or at the use of OBD-II to test 1996 and newer vehicles. The problem is that the Prius doesn’t exactly “idle.” When the Prius is “on” and at a standstill status, the internal combustion engine (ICE) is stopped. If the ICE is not running at a constant idle speed, the emission test cannot complete and the vehicle fails.

Initially, the Toyota exhaust system fails. Consequently, the vehicle itself fails the test.

For formality sake, owners must still pay the $25 testing fee for the aborted test even though all emissions tests centers across the state of Georgia already know that the vehicle will fail the test. Heather Abrams of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division says that the Prius must take the doomed test so that the vehicle information can be put into Georgia’s system. Owners must take their failed emissions certificate to a GCAF Waiver Center to get permission to receive a new tag or call in with the code number on the aborted test.

Abrams says they do not want the consumer to have to go any further than necessary to get their tag. The state only gets 95 cents from every emissions test. Georgia is currently in the process of updating its system so that 2005 model year Prius hybrids will be accommodated.

Your Toyota exhaust emits particulates which people eventually inhales. The state wants its constituents’ safety. So the Environmental Protection Division encourages its people to obey the policy.

About the Author

Jerick Brooks is a BS Computer Science graduate at Columbus State University. He has passion for anything car-related especially car racing. He loves writing and currently works as an IT consultant in a company based in Atlanta.

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Could anyone tell me a few mass produced vehicles using a hydrogen fuel cell?

Or even any vehicle using a hydrogen fuel cell.

Cheers!
Owen Parkinson

Hi Owen,

It’s a pleasure for me to answer your question at the best of my ability as this is a subject I take at heart.
Since President Bush claimed that hydrogen was the way to go, (while simultaneously helping to defeat the zero emission mandate in California that would promote electric vehicles) there has been a sort of free fall toward hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

There is a reason that the “Oil president” would promote such a plan. Hydrogen would be made from the fossil fuels oil and natural gas. Just when it looked like electric cars could work he was going to “save” the oil companies from the prospect of loosing 70% of their market No.1

I will grant you that the Wiki article cited above does list fuel cell vehicles No.2. But to call the Honda Clarity a production vehicle when only 200 were expected to be produced is a bit misleading. It will also be available only for lease and only in southern California. In the US alone there have been several tests of battery electric vehicles and markets using 500 vehicles each time. Yet these were not considered “production vehicles.” The totally electric Nissan Leaf has starting production (fall 2009) with an expected capacity of 50,000 vehicles a year. Sometimes I think there should be full disclosure of who is writing the articles and who they are beholding to…

This said fuel cells may have their roll to play. This may especially true with electric powered flight if the fuel cell system proves to be much lighter than a similar battery system. (Even if the fuel cell system is substantially more expensive than a the battery system.). I have provided you with these two links below about using Fuel Cell Technology.

http://www.newairplane.com/environment/renewableenergy/fuelcells
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4257294.html

There are quite different techniques, ways and approaches using Hydrogen as a Fuel. I am a true believer in “Clean Energy” but am speaking with both my feet on the ground here . There are too many people out there who would seriously consider a cleaner emission, or even zero emission vehicle for their mode of transportation if certain requirements through their self-based criteria are met. The most two stumbling blocks for most people are:

• The Purchase Price
• Re-Fueling  Efficiency in their neighborhood

Starting on the purchase price of these hybrid/alternative fuel or electrical powered vehicles. They are still quite expensive for most normal income-bracket people, so affordability is already out of the question for them right now. Probably you might be one of them too. When more cheaper production solutions are found on these types of vehicles, their price will become more affordable to the general public.

The other issue is how efficient is your surrounding traveling areas when it comes to these type of fuel re-topping.
If its an electric car are there any fast and reliable charging stations?
If the vehicle is using hydrogen, especially if it is just hydrogen powered (not a hydrogen hybrid) are there any hydrogen fuel stations available in your frequently traveling zones?
We all know that reality strikes in when these critical solutions are not available to the general public. Some people might even sacrifice their hard-earned and pull a loan to purchase one of these vehicles if there wasn’t the second problem of re-fueling.

“The best approach for us to take until these main concerns are tackled by the authorities is to utilize what we’ve already got ,and improve on it — if it is worth our time and money”

Technological advancements of a certain discovery which is now nearly a century old has been improved through various technical challenging people who had their hands on this subject “Water Electrolysis” which will produce hydrogen. Thanks to all the contributions of these people from different walks of life, but who all had one thing in common — they got fed-up paying for ridiculous high fuel prices which are always on a constant rise, year after year, we can now convert our engines to become a hybrid using both the traditional fuel (gas or diesel) but at a much lower rate of consumption with an added secondary fuel in the mix, hydrogen. The benefit of using hydrogen is that it is also a clean burning fuel unlike the oil based fuel and the emissions produced by hydrogen are not emissions but water vapor.

Now that you are armed with this information, it is totally up to you to take the initiative and follow the emerging crowd of cleaner energy vehicles. The systems when designed and installed professionally DO WORK and the best part is that you are still using your own vehicle, no new vehicle loans are needed. Most DIY Hydrogen-on-Demand systems, including the pre-built hydrogen generator kits which just need to be installed are all based and installed as an accessory on the engine, no internal engine mods are needed. This means that should you ever, for whatever reason wish to revert back to running solely on traditional fuel you can easily do so.

Do you think that this hydrogen-on-demand system is for you? There are two main options for you here, depending on your circumstances.

Are you a DIY person, or do you have anyone who can build this for you as a hobby project from scratch using documented manuals, how to step-by-step educational videos and other literature formats?
If this interesting and no doubt beneficial project (money saver on fuel and more environmentally-friendly through cleaner emissions) is for you, you can check out the Five Best DIY Hydrogen Generator Products we managed to find out there before deciding to buy them and test them on our mule test engines before we could conclude if they were good enough for us to offer this conversion service to our customers in our workshop premises. We wanted something that is not only good value for money but is also easy and fast for us to build from scratch and is reliable enough “set ‘n’ forget” as much as possible. We didn’t want to shatter our reputation with our clients because the system is giving trouble, or isn’t working correctly, or even working at all. Having our customers coming back to us daily, weekly or monthly  because of the system’s inefficiencies would frustrate both them and us, and we would probably loose them too. These can be found on the HHO Product Test Results page.

Are you hopeless at DIY or have a time constraint problem working against you?
If you do wish to have a hydrogen hybrid BUT unfortunately are no good at DIY, or have anyone you can trust such a project, there is still another solution for you.
This is slightly more expensive but the benefits of this extra expense should work in your favor because you are going to have a ready-to-install product which has been tested by the manufacturer for quality and flow consistency before being dispatched to you. There will also be the mandatory guarantee as found on any new purchased products nowadays.

So with less headaches you can be running a professional system within the same day you receive your parcel. Even if you do not want or cannot do the installation yourself any auto technician or mechanic can do it for you an is more likely to install a kit rather than build one from scratch for you. A very professional, affordable and highly effective system is the HHO Direct Generator System, amongst many other quality and competitive products out there. Customer helpline is the best we have encountered for the kit systems.

Vehicle Hydrogen Fuel Cell Explained

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Innovation, Markets and Sustainable Energy (Hardcover) $113.85 Fuel cells are devices that convert hydrogen to electricity, with no harmful emissions. In this case study of the hydrogen and fuel cell industry and markets, contributions from Europe, the US, and Japan examine the implications of introducing fuel cel…

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Goodbye, Gasoline (Reinforced Hardcover) $21.55 Describes various types of fuel cells and their functions, looks at some of the obstacles that stand in the way of using hydrogen fuel cells as a source of alternative energy, and discusses the future development of fuel cell technology.

Goodbye, Gasoline (Paperback) $7.87 Describes various types of fuel cells and their functions, looks at some of the obstacles that stand in the way of using hydrogen fuel cells as a source of alternative energy, and discusses the future development of fuel cell technology.

Careers in Renewable Energy $13.46 Numerous job opportunities await in the fast-growing field of renewable energy. Grab this handy book and discover how green energy can be a part of your future. Job sectors include solar and wind energy, biofuels, hydrogen energy and fuel cells, geothe…

Etanol y otros combustibles nuevos/Ethanol and Other New Fuels (Reinforced Hardcover) $21.78 Introduces ethanol, biodiesel, and hydrogen fuel cells as sources of energy, places them in context with other power resources, explains how they work, and considers the advantages and disadvantages of their possible future use.

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