In The Future We'll Grow Our Own Cars

[DeSwiss]

SOURCE: BBC News

Green Racing Car Has Potato Tyres


Ben Wood is studying for his
Engineering Doctorate at WMG

Researchers at a university built an environmentally-friendly racing car with tyres made from potatoes and brake pads from cashew nut shells.
Eco One is the idea of WMG, a provider of innovative solutions to industry based at the University of Warwick.

The car was designed originally with a top speed of 125mph (201km/h).

It will be at the Sexy Green Car Show alongside green offerings from major names in the motor industry at the Eden Project in Cornwall from Friday.

'Recyclable materials'

The car also runs entirely on bio-fuels and bio-lubricants.

Project manager Ben Wood said he has tweaked the original engine and claims he can achieve up to 150mph (241km/h) given a long straight and a tailwind.

He said: "Almost everything on the car can be made out of biodegradable or recyclable materials.

"All the plastic components can be made from plants and, although the chassis has to be made from steel for strength, steel is a very recyclable material.

"We already have the shell, brake pads, fuel and tyres sorted.

"My aim is to end up with a race car that's 95 per cent biodegradable or recyclable.

"If we can build a high-performance car that can virtually be grown from seed, just imagine what's possible for the average family car."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/6493411.stm

*** - Mmmmm, my own lemon car....

[Cobalt-60]

1. A Kudzu car would regenerate injuries

Nothing stops that stuff from growing

[DeSwiss]

2. Hell!

That damn vine is all over my back yard! Its taking over the trees!

I could be rich!!!!

:think:

[MADem]

4. Gee, wonder if that stuff would take to the Saudi desert... nt

[Richard Steele]

3. Kudzu? That stuff's everywhere! It would be the VW Beetle all over again! nm

[JetJaguar]

5. In the past also (1941)

Grown to drive,


...

"On August 14, 1941, at the 15th Annual Dearborn Michigan Homecoming Day celebration, Henry Ford unveiled his biological car. Seventy percent of the body of the cream-colored automobile consisted of a mat of long and short fibers from field straw, cotton linters, hemp, flax, ramie and slash pine. The other 30 percent consisted of a filler of soymeal and a liquid bioresin.

"The timing gears, horn buttons, gearshift knobs, door handles and accelerator pedals were derived from soybeans. The tires were made from goldenrods bred by Ford’s close friend Thomas Edison. The gas tank contained a blend: about 85 percent gasoline and about 15 percent corn-derived ethanol."

To prove the vehicle’s superiority, Ford demonstrated the strength of the car body by smashing an ax against the trunk, only to have it bounce off. For some it remains a landmark event.

"That’s one of my favorite pictures," says Richard Wool, who is at the vanguard of an emerging industry that’s rediscovering what Ford thought to be a better way of making cars. Following in Ford’s track, Wool is developing adhesive bioresins from soy oil at the University of Delaware.

"To Henry Ford," wrote Morris, "the vegetable car was the perfect vehicle for driving the American farmer out of a 20-year economic depression. But after World War II, the maturation of the petrochemical industry and the export-driven revival of American agriculture seemed to relegate the idea of a biological car to the dustbins of history. Fifty years later, at the twilight of the 20th century, Ford’s dreams are again attracting attention. Working independently, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are finding more and more ways to incorporate vegetable-derived products into your standard car."


...


http://www.metrotimes.com/news/stories/news/19/14/14grown.html



also

Site with pictures.


http://www.thehenryford.org/research/services/populartopics/SoybeanCar/default.asp

[trof]

7. Wow. Thanks. Very interesting.

[NJCher]

6. OK, go ahead and laugh, but

One night on Coast to Coast a remote viewer was talking about what he saw as the energy source used in spaceships. He said their approach to energy is entirely different than ours and that they "grow" their energy. It's a biological process.



Cher