By Kelsey Blaylock
Ford has already begun their sustainable journey using eco-friendly, beneficial products on their vehicles including recycled plastic and tires, cotton from post-consumers for padding within the vehicle’s interior, soy-based foams in your seat cushions, rice hulls to fortify the plastic, wheat straw to strengthen your storage receptacles, and other materials in order to create vehicles suitable for the environment.
Ford’s recent breakthrough, however, is testing out one of the world’s strongest natural materials, bamboo—or, as Ford calls it, “nature’s wonder material.” Ford’s plan is to use bamboo in the interior portions of future vehicles. Bamboo is a renewable, fast-growing resource that fully matures in just two to five years and can grow three feet in a day. This product is more practical than trees, which usually take decades to fully grow. In fact, bamboo has been known for over a century as a beneficial alternative to many materials, from Thomas Edison using it when inventing light bulbs, to Ford potentially installing it in their vehicles.
This possible new car material has been tested with impact strength tests and tensile tests, or, tests that determine how the car withstands being pulled apart. Based on these results, Ford and their suppliers have evaluated that bamboo can improve metal or replace it all together.
Also, when bamboo is added to plastic it makes the material stronger than it is already is. Bamboo has even maintained its solidarity in heat as high as 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Over many years of testing Ford has concluded that bamboo has out-performed itself compared to other synthetic materials and natural fibers.
Ford plans on continuing their sustainable journey and tests on bamboo. Their next research plan is to pair with Jose Cuervo® and test out the company’s agave plant byproduct. Ford hopes to use this tequila producer’s product to create more sufficient bioplastics to put inside of Ford vehicles.
Regardless of what material your Ford car could be made up of next, it will always be "Built Ford tough!"
Ford’s recent breakthrough, however, is testing out one of the world’s strongest natural materials, bamboo—or, as Ford calls it, “nature’s wonder material.” Ford’s plan is to use bamboo in the interior portions of future vehicles. Bamboo is a renewable, fast-growing resource that fully matures in just two to five years and can grow three feet in a day. This product is more practical than trees, which usually take decades to fully grow. In fact, bamboo has been known for over a century as a beneficial alternative to many materials, from Thomas Edison using it when inventing light bulbs, to Ford potentially installing it in their vehicles.
This possible new car material has been tested with impact strength tests and tensile tests, or, tests that determine how the car withstands being pulled apart. Based on these results, Ford and their suppliers have evaluated that bamboo can improve metal or replace it all together.
Also, when bamboo is added to plastic it makes the material stronger than it is already is. Bamboo has even maintained its solidarity in heat as high as 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Over many years of testing Ford has concluded that bamboo has out-performed itself compared to other synthetic materials and natural fibers.
Ford plans on continuing their sustainable journey and tests on bamboo. Their next research plan is to pair with Jose Cuervo® and test out the company’s agave plant byproduct. Ford hopes to use this tequila producer’s product to create more sufficient bioplastics to put inside of Ford vehicles.
Regardless of what material your Ford car could be made up of next, it will always be "Built Ford tough!"
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