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A team of students have built the world’s first fully biodegradable car made from sugar beet and flax fibres and it has passed road safety tests in the Netherlands.
The students from Eindhoven University now hope to begin further road trials.
“It’s the first car in the world that can be completely recycled,” said team member Loes van der Beuken. “Flax has an extremely resilient structure. If you overlay it at different angles you can make panels that stand comparison with carbon fibre and aluminium, which are used extensively in regular car production.”
In fact its lightweight structure takes 20 per cent of the energy used to produce today’s regular cars and when it comes to the end of its workable life … parts that cannot be reused will simply melt away over time.
The project has won support from TomTom’s Traffic Solutions division of the company that produces traffic, navigation and mapping products. Its president, Carlo van de Weijer, said: “Yesterday’s stupid idea is tomorrow’s breakthrough. They’ve thought of something that would never have occurred to me.”
The materials used in the Lina’s construction also have the added benefit of reducing its fuel consumption. The Lina has an electric motor and Mr van de Weijer said the project was promising although it was unlikely to be rolling off factory production lines in the near future. “Manufacturers tend to be reticent with these sorts of experiments but I’m sure they will be keeping a close eye on what the students are doing.”
