Lotus Concept Car Body Made Out of Hemp

September 13th, 2008

Don’t get me wrong, this is the most absurd clean, green hype piece that you’re likely to read today. It’ll be a big hit with the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf crowd in Santa Monica… However, I found it very fascinating that the body of the vehicle is made out of hemp.

We all know about hemp paper, hemp rope, hemp textiles, hemp building materials… But hemp as a replacement material for metal car body panels?

Yep. Well, according to Lotus, anyway.

I thought, “Gee, maybe someone will make a bike frame out of hemp some day.” Here are some that are made out of bamboo with hemp fiber lugs. How much? If you have to ask…

Via: Transport 2.0:

Sustainable hemp technical fabrics have been used as the primary constituent in the high quality “A” class composite body panels and spoiler. The renewable hemp has exceptional material properties that make for a very strong fibre. Historically hemp has been used in the manufacture of rope, illustrating the great strength of the material.

The hemp fibres have also been used in the manufacture of the lightweight Lotus designed seats. An additional benefit of using hemp is that it is a natural resource that requires relatively low energy to manufacture and absorbs CO2 whilst growing as a plant through natural photosynthesis. This hemp material is used with a polyester resin to form a hybrid composite, however it is hoped that a fully recyclable composite resin will be viable in the short-term future.

More: BAMBUCICLETAS

More: Bamboo Bike Project

4 Responses to “Lotus Concept Car Body Made Out of Hemp”

  1. RuralNinja says:

    Tsk tsk! Papa Ninja thinks you been slacking on your research on that friendly plant!
    This is by no means a new thing…Check this out:
    http://www.hempcar.org/ford.shtml

    “When Henry Ford told a New York Times reporter that ethyl alcohol was “the fuel of the future” in 1925, he was expressing an opinion that was widely shared in the automotive industry. “The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that sumach out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust — almost anything,” he said. “There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There’s enough alcohol in one year’s yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years.”

    Ford recognized the utility of the hemp plant. He constructed a car of resin stiffened hemp fiber, and even ran the car on ethanol made from hemp. Ford knew that hemp could produce vast economic resources if widely cultivated.

    Ford’s optimistic appraisal of cellulose and crop based ethyl alcohol fuel can be read in several ways. First, it can be seen as an oblique jab at a competitor. General Motors had come to considerable grief that summer of 1925 over another octane boosting fuel called tetra-ethyl lead, and government officials had been quietly in touch with Ford engineers about alternatives to leaded gasoline additives. Secondly, by 1925 the American farms that Ford loved were facing an economic crisis that would later intensify with the depression. Although the causes of the crisis were complex, one possible solution was seen in creating new markets for farm products. With Ford’s financial and political backing, the idea of opening up industrial markets for farmers would be translated into a broad movement for scientific research in agriculture that would be labelled “Farm Chemurgy.” 2

    Why Henry’s plans were delayed for more than a half century:

    Ethanol has been known as a fuel for many decades. Indeed, when Henry Ford designed the Model T, it was his expectation that ethanol, made from renewable biological materials, would be a major automobile fuel. However, gasoline emerged as the dominant transportation fuel in the early twentieth century because of the ease of operation of gasoline engines with the materials then available for engine construction, a growing supply of cheaper petroleum from oil field discoveries, and intense lobbying by petroleum companies for the federal government to maintain steep alcohol taxes. Many bills proposing a National energy program that made use of Americas vast agricultural resources (for fuel production) were killed by smear campaigns launched by vested petroleum interests. One noteworthy claim put forth by petrol companies was that the U.S. government’s plans “robbed taxpayers to make farmers rich”.

    Also, everyone should read this book about the latest hemp research:
    http://www.amazon.com/Advances-Hemp-Research-Paoli-Ranalli/dp/1560228725

    Off that couch and read some hempy!

  2. Angelo says:

    You weren’t aware of hemp fibers applications! Henry Ford did the hemp body panel over 70 years ago…

    The Hemp Revolution – a great piece of documentary:

    pt 1 – http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3070358204716119824

    pt 2 – http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8376961766517588127

  3. RuralNinja says:

    Btw, thanks for those bamboo bike links!
    Papa Ninja went nuts drooling over his keyboard with that one! Papa LOVES em!

    Off to cook some resin, and find some bamboo 😉
    Maybe when I get a workshop 🙂

  4. zoltan says:

    ….and best of all, the new Lotus is fully compliant with the EU end of life directive as it can be composted or fed through a garden shredder

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