Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd. has developed a lighter weight oil pump, one of the component parts in automobile transmissions, by making some sections of the pump with plastic instead of metal.
Oil pumps circulate oil to decrease friction in the transmission gears and bearings. Toyoda Gosei has leveraged one of its core technologies, precision molding of plastics, to make gears and other components of oil pumps with plastic. This cuts the weight of the pump by about thirty percent.
This lightweight oil pump is used on the hybrid (HEV) versions of Toyota Motor Corporation’s Noah and Voxy models, launched in January 2022 in Japan. These newly develop oil pumps are recognized by Toyota for their contribution to the vehicles’ environmental performance, for which Toyota presented a “Project Award” to Toyoda Gosei.