Ford creates greener cars from the inside out

Ford has created several hybrid cars like the Ford Escape and Fusion hybrids, and the Lincoln Mariner and Milan hybrids.  The company has created  “EcoBoost” technology that allows a V6 engine to respond like a V8 engine through direct injection and turbo engines.  But probably the greenest part of many future Ford vehicles will be found on the inside.

Ford will be including a special bin in its Ford Flex crossover vehicle that is made from plastic reinforced by 20 percent wheat straw.  Ford partnered with Ontario’s BioCar Initiative and the universities of Guelph, Toronto, Waterloo and Windsor to create this fortified plastic for automotive use.  The BioCar Initiative is working with auto manufacturers, universities and private entities to develop usable products from biomass waste for use in automobiles.

The wheat straw-reinforced resin is the BioCar Initiative’s first production-ready application. It demonstrates better dimensional integrity than a non-reinforced plastic and weighs up to 10 percent less than a plastic reinforced with talc or glass.

Wheat straw is the waste portion of wheat.  What is left after the harvest.  Adding wheat straw to the plastic, “reduces petroleum usage by some 20,000 pounds per year, reduces CO2 emissions by 30,000 pounds per year.”

Although Ford is currently only using this biomass plastic for a bin in the 2010 Ford Flex, other potential uses are popping up. 

Already under consideration by the Ford team: center console bins and trays, interior air register and door trim panel components, and armrest liners.

Using wheat straw reinforced plastic is not the only green technology being used in Ford cars.  Ford has been using “soy-based polyurethane foams” in seatbacks and cushions in various models across all of Ford’s product lines.  Many of the seat fabrics are constructed from recycled yarns creating a “64 percent reduction in energy consumption and a 60 percent reduction in CO2 emissions”

Other green initiatives are using “post-consumer recycled resins such as detergent bottles, tires and battery casings” for various parts used in the underbody of the car.  This has diverted “between 25 and 30 million pounds of plastic from landfills”.  Using “repurposed nylon carpeting” in nylon resin has led to Ford’s first “eco-friendly cylinder head cover” used in the 2010 Ford Fusion and Escape.

All of the figures given for CO2 reductions and other environmental savings were provided by Ford and are presumably based on something other than arbitrary figures.  Ford has had the first American hybrids on the market and is making incremental improvements in the mileage of its larger vehicles with such innovations as the EcoBoost system.  But the greatest environmental strides taken by the company may well turn out to be contained in the materials that make up its vehicles.

All of this seems to be lifting Ford out of the doldrums.  Unlike the other big American automakers Ford has managed to turn a profit even without taking stimulus money.