"jeff" wrote in message
news:P4hue.2132$G4.2010@trnddc09...
Ed Huntress wrote:

However, the energy consumed in manufacturing a vehicle, as we said
above,
is a miniscule part of the total life-cycle energy consumption of any
vehicle. There's an interesting, easy-to-read white paper that will show
you
what the trends a

A number of years ago a LLNL study put the manufacturing portion of
total life cycle energy consumption of an automobile at close to 50%.
Increased use of plastics, thinner/recycled steel, and greater lifespans
have reduced this somewhat, but it is still in the same order of
magnitude with roughly 1/3 of the total life cycle energy being used
just to build a car. Not what I would call minuscule, but headed in the
right direction.

Manufacturing has never been over 5%. Where did you get that data?

It's expected to go up, with increased use of lightweight materials, but
total life-cycle energy consumption will go down.

--
Ed Huntress