Last week we posted about an eco-boat made of hemp. Well now it seems that the maker of high-end luxury sport cars, Lotus, has also started to consider hemp as a raw material. As Eureka Magazine reports:
Lotus has developed a special green edition of its Elise sports car, the “Eco Elise”, using natural materials, [...] Hemp, wool and sisal have been used in body panels and trim, and combined with water-based paint. Hemp technical fabrics have been used in the “A”class composite body panels and spoiler, in conjunction with polyester to form a hybrid composite. [...] The hard top is made of hemp, and two solar panels have been integrated into the roof. The hemp fibres were grown locally in East Anglia.
The car has a bunch of other neat eco-features that you can read about in the original article. It’s worth noting, however, that as forward-thinking as this is of Lotus, they are not the first car manufacturer to consider hemp as a raw material. In fact, Henry Ford explored using hemp to make body panels as far back as the 1920s. As HempCar.org points out:
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.
Of course, hemp’s potential as a building material doesn’t stop there. For more stationary feats of engineering, there is also hempcrete.
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