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A really salad speedster by Wei-chin Chang (8-13-2007)
 The Brits have come up with a race car that does 0-60 in under 4 seconds. Not impressed? The car has a top-end of 150mph. Still not impressed? Well, you ought to be. The car, except for its chassis, is made entirely from vegetables. You read that right, vegetables. From fuel to tires, vegetables.
The tires are made of potatoes and the brake pads from ground cashew shells.The body was created from hemp and rapeseed oil, and it runs on fuel made from fermented wheat and sugar beet.Yet despite the greenest of credentials, this mean machine is capable of a highly-impressive 150 mph.
The one-seater racing car - called Eco One (here, here, here, here, here) - has been built by experts from Warwick University to dispel the perception that 'green' motoring means dull little electric runarounds or filling your fuel tank with chip fat.
Ben Wood, studying for his Engineering Doctorate at WMG, said: "Almost everything on the car can be made out of biodegradable or recyclable materials. All the plastic components can be made from plants and, although the chassis has to be made from steel for strength, steel is a very recyclable material. The car also runs entirely on bio-fuels and bio-lubricants."
"We already have the shell, brake pads, fuel and tyres sorted. My aim is to end up with a race car that's 95 per cent biodegradable or recyclable. If we can build a high-performance car that can virtually be grown from seed, just imagine what's possible for the average family car."
Eco One got its first public outing at the Sexy Green Car Show at the Eden Project where, from 30 March to 15 April 2007, it rubbed shoulders with green offerings from the biggest names in the motor industry worldwide.
Eco One has been invited to the National Science Museum in London from Tuesday 28th to Thursday 30th of August. The main event message is how cutting-edge technology is making high performance eco-friendly cars a reality, helping dispel the myth that "green" cars are slow and sluggish.
Click and visit "Green Car Congress", a nice website covers everything about energy, technology, issue and policy for sustainable mobility.
Eco One may not be the first "Green Car" around. 'Green' does not have to mean slow - running on liquefied petroleum gas, one of the least polluting fuels, and lubricated with sunflower oil, a formula one set a new speed record of 315 km/h in 2004.
Modified to run on E85 (a blend of 15 per cent unleaded petrol and 85 per cent bioethanol), an Aston Martin DBRS9 GT3 won the fifth round of 2007 Avon Tyres British GT Championship - the first such success by a bioethanol-powered car in any British motor-racing series. |
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