Ford and Coca-Cola have come up with a vehicle interior fabric made from the same renewable material used to produce the beverage maker’s so called PlantBottle technology.
The two companies will show a Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid vehicle with plant-based interior fabric surfaces covering seat cushions, seat backs, head restraints, door panel inserts and headliners at the Los Angeles motor show this month.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Coca-Cola started introducing PlantBottles in 2009, replacing all-PET – derived from fossil fuels – with identical looking bottles made using up to 22.5% plant materials combined with up to 25% recycled plastic.
The criteria was a sustainable plant material that wouldn’t harm the ecology or the people of the region where it is produced and the only source meeting these criteria at the moment is Brazilian sugarcane, which is primarily rain-fed and grown on abundant, arable land using organic fertilisers, according to Coca-Cola. The material is also the basis of Brazil’s homegrown ethanol fuel technology which replaces petrol 100% in many cars sold there.
The Ford research vehicle is the first time PlantBottle technology has been applied beyond packaging.
The automaker also uses PET, a durable, lightweight plastic also known as polyethylene terephthalate, in fabrics and carpets.
Coke said 18bn PlantBottle packages have been distributed in 28 countries since 2009 resulting in more than 400,000 barrels of oil saved. Ford claims if the new fabrics were migrated across the majority of its US Ford models, it would displace nearly 4m pounds of petroleum-derived materials, as well as save the equivalent of 295,000 gallons of petrol and 6,000 barrels of oil.
The fibre from PlantBottle material can be woven into durable, automotive-grade PET fabric.
Other sustainable materials used in Ford cars include sound-absorbing denim material equivalent to more than two average-sized pairs of blue jeans in the carpet liner, material equivalent to 38.9 clear-plastic 16 ounce recycled bottles in some cloth-seat Fusions and about 31,250 soybeans in the foam used in Fusion seat cushions.
Ford now uses soy foam in every vehicle built in North America. Since its first application in 2007, the use has reduced petroleum production by more than 5m pounds and carbon dioxide emissions by 20m pounds annually.
