Twenty-two Dutch students from the Technical University of Eindhoven have designed and built a fully functioning electric vehicle made almost entirely out of waste. They used recycled household garbage and PET bottles, ocean plastic, and salvaged auto parts. The team named their bright yellow, eco-friendly, sporty two-seater ‘Luca.’
Project manager Lisa van Etten told Reuters:
This car is extraordinary because it’s made out of waste. Our chassis is made out of flax and recycled PET bottles. For the interior, we also used unsorted household waste.
The car’s body is made of rigid plastics usually found in toys, televisions, and kitchen appliances.
Its seat cushions are made of horse hairs and coconut.
It took the team about 18 months to complete the project, from design to final product. Their goal was to prove the potential of waste.
Production team member Matthijs van Wijk said:
We hope car companies will start using waste materials. It’s possible in many applications. More and more companies use waste or biobased materials in the interior; we want to show that it’s also possible to build a chassis out of it.
The materials not sourced from waste include the tires and the six modular batteries. Not for lack of effort! The students contacted companies developing biodegradable tires, but they didn’t have any products ready for use yet. The motors also aren’t from recycling.
Van Wijk said:
The motors are purchased since we simply do not have the manpower to develop our own motors.
Luca has a range of 220 kilometers when fully charged and can reach a top speed of 90 kilometers (56 miles) per hour.
And this isn’t the only team of Dutch students going above and beyond with sustainable car solutions. Green Team Twente, a multidisciplinary team, consists of university staff and enthusiastic students, developed the most efficient hydrogen car.
Meanwhile, the Dutch flying car company PAL-V recently had its PAL-V Liberty approved for road usage in Europe. It’s not an electric vehicle, so it doesn’t fit the eco-friendly mobility topic, but it is the continent’s first-ever street-legal flying car.
