Honda's New Plant-Based Automobile Fabric

TreeHugger has seen plant-based plastic in cars and plant-based fabric before, but never plant-fabric in cars...until now. Honda has succeeded in developing bio-fabric, a plant-based fabric with excellent durability and resistance to sunlight, for use as a surface material in automobile interiors. Bio-fabric offers the benefit of offsetting CO2 emissions produced during incineration in the disposal stage with CO2 absorption that occurs during the growth stage of the plants (also known around here as "climate-neutrality") that are used as raw materials. Concerns about limited durability and aesthetics have kept the fabric out of commercial use, until now; Honda's new fabric has a soft and smooth material appropriate for the surface of automobile interiors, with high durability and excellent resistance to sunlight to prevent color fading after prolonged use. In addition to seat surfaces, this bio-fabric can be used for the interior surface of the doors and roof and for floor mats. Honda will install these bio-fabric interiors to the company’s all-new fuel cell vehicle which will be introduced to the market within next three years. ::Honda via ::Green Car Congress