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Emissions aren’t the only dirty aspect of cars, a lot of pollution is created in the manufacturing of vehicles, so it’s always good to see carmakers attempting to clean up their production processes and make use of greener materials.

Two new developments look to be very positive steps towards using more sustainable vehicle component materials.

The first is a new tyre manufacturing technology from Yokohama that enables them to make tyres from orange rinds. Yes… tyres. from. orange. rinds. Apparently, oil is extracted from rinds that would otherwise have been waste material discarded by the citrus industry. About 85% if the tyre is made from this citrus oil, with the balance being made from “traditional” tyre materials. In addition to the obvious benefit of using much less petroleum to make, the tyres ae said to be lighter, thus improving vehicles’ fuel efficiency.

The tyres aren’t production ready just yet and there’s no concrete data on how tough they are, but let’s hold thumbs that this technology hits the streets soon.

Another exciting new technology is enabling carmakers to put discarded plastic liquids containers to very good use by making them into body panels. The plastic product, by a company called Sabic Plastics is called iQ and it’s made up of 85% post-consumer plastic bottles. Body panels made from iQ are half as heavy as normal steel panels and they can be formed into complex shapes that steel can’t. Not to mention that they really make good use of waste plastic. Currently Chevrolet and Hyundai are featuring the technology in the respective Volt and QarmaQ concept cars. I wonder how these panels would be panel beaten? Maybe they’re quite immune to small dings and just spring back into shape.

Source: Triple Pundit