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Toyota Building A Seaweed Car |
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Written by wbg friend
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Thursday, 26 February 2009 06:00 |
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Authors: You may think the Toyota Prius is green but the company is already looking to build uber-green cars from seaweed. That's right, you too could be driving around in your very own Kelp Machine as Toyota pushes ahead to become the greenest of the green. The only snag is that you may have to wait 15 years. The seaweed motor will be built upon the exsiting 1/X plug-in hybrid concept [above] which uses carbon-fibre and already weighs in at a featherweight 926lbs. The new car would swap out that carbon-fibre for bioplastics based on seaweed. Talking about the 1/X [pronounced 'one-xth' because of its weight and tiny carbon footprint compared to rivals], project manager Tetsuya Kaida said: "We used lightweight carbon-fiber reinforced plastic throughout the body and frame for its superior collision safety. But that material is made from oil. In the future, I'm sure we will have access to new and better materials, such as those made from plants, something natural, maybe something like paper. In fact, I want to create such a vehicle from seaweed because Japan is surrounded by the sea." Bioplastics [used in some mobile phone cases] are already tipped to be huge in manufacturing, with the market expected to be worth $50bn within the next 5 years. Kyoto University recently built a prototype car from bamboo. Toyota will be unveiling its current and future green car offerings at the Melbourne Motor Show soon, wheeling out the next-gen Prius, a Camry concept designed in Australia and the 1/X. "The 1/X concept is a vehicle that completely redefines what it means to be environmentally considerate. commented David Buttner, senior executive director of sales and marketing "The name says it all: a car that weighs a fraction of the others in its class today and uses a fraction of the fuel." Still, 15-years is a long time to wait and we had so hoped we'd all be using flying cars by then.-Martin Lynch [Wired] car motoring green
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