Sitting on Plant-Based Fabrics

Honda's new plant-based fabric will be used as a material for car interiors, especially its upcoming fuel cell vehicle.

From the South Wales Echo:

Honda has developed a plant-based fabric for use as a material for car interiors.

The bio-fabric offsets all CO2 emissions produced during the disposal stage of the car through the CO2 absorption that occurs during the growth stage of the plants used as the raw materials.

In the past, plant-based fabric has not been used commercially because of concerns about limited durability and aesthetic issues.

But the new bio-fabric has a high durability and strong resistance to sunlight to prevent colour fading.

It can be used for seats and the interior surface of the doors and roof and for floor mats.

Honda says it now plans to install these bio-fabric interiors to the company's all-new fuel cell vehicle, which will be introduced within three years.

A material called PPT is the basis of the bio-fabric, which is produced from corn and a petroleum-based component.