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Ford Shows Off Recyclable Car
Opspin writes "MBDC (who wrote the book Cradle to Cradle) write in their
January Newsletter about a Ford Concept Car that includes Bluetooth technology as well as Cradle-to-Cradle design strategies. Read the MBDC press release, and the Ford Motor Company press release."
I'd like to have the opportunity to throw away a Ford Focus. Sure it probably has all of the proper bullet points, but there are lots of very nice cars out there with the right price/feature ratio that actually have a _soul_!
Now if we could just get a Mr. Fusion to power them!
Unless it hasn't been possible to melt down old cars and make new products out of them until now?
Just keep buildin' and buyin' and throwin' away... keep the economy ticking over, keep the boys employed, keep suckin' up those natural resources... mm.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I must say that it's a great concept, but my first impression is that the thing is really ugly. I wonder how many people rank the look of their vehicle in the list of priorities for buying. If they do, will the look of this one negatively affect its sales?
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Photos in Google's cache can be found here.
Of all the cars I've ever had - the Ford was the worst. What's so new about his one?
In all honesty, how many people do you think actually recycle? Fine, a new disposable environmentally friendly car is developed. But, last I checked, most recyclable items still ended up in trash and ultimately in land fills. I can't imagine what would happen if you could throw away a car that often
It doesn't help that the President now wants to provide tax incentives for certain types of SUV owners. Face it, beneath the green rhetoric, the US is a society that lives on pig iron and fossil fuels.
From the article:
- Corn-based roof canvas
- Bio-materials, including soy-based foam and tailgate, sunflower seed-based oil, corn tire filler
if you run out of other uses for it, you can eat it too!
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
They are quite progressive about this subject. Here is a research paper on the German law.
For decades the automobile has been the most recycled consumer product. First a discarded automobile is stripped of its vauable parts. Ever attend a 'all-you-can-carry' day at an automotive salvage yard? A huge crowd of people disassembling autos for the parts they need. Doors, hoods, dashboards, engines, alternators, seats, anything....
Also note, that the majority of stolen cars are stolen for their parts.
After striping, depending on the car and its arrival condition it can be anything from a stripped shell to pretty much intact. At this point the car is crushed.
The crushed car is then put through a shredder, then through various processes the metals are separated and depending how advanced the facility, the plastics and other materials.
BTW, under consideration in europe for auto recycling has beena dismantling approach. Where the automaker takes the car back and actually diassembles it, rather than using a crusher and shreadder.
Even if one is displeased with the actual amount of automotive recycling, the fact remains, it is higher than other consumer products.
Seems that a car like this should be more geared twords business or people who buy on a leese. For the general buyer, a throw away car will not be all that hot of an idea. Having monthly payments on a limited income is what you try to avoid. While this idea really isnt new, im suprised that Ford is one of the first to actually come out and say "Hey, this car wont last x yrs and its not made to." One other thing, how enviromently friendly is a car like this anyway? Ya, it cuts down on emitions and fuel consumption but havning an entire car get retired and destroyed after a short period of time isnt all that great. The car will still have to be gutted, crushed, recycled back to workable material, all this generating waste and other nice byproducts. Looks like we might just be creating the same amout of toxins and waste just in another area.
Don't forget that Ford really sucks.
Chris
It says a lot of the market here (or what Ford & GM think of the market) that Ford is greener in the EU than in the US. There's a 50+ mpg Ford Focus selling in the UK, there's a Volvo (owned by Ford) diesel sedam/stn wagon that has more oomph than the most poerful gas version with 40+ mpg, and Merc and BMW have hotrod diesel sedans in regular production over there. Think about it, a doubling of fuel efficiency of they'd sell the same thing here, with no war, no pain, no massive infrastructure changes, almost nothing. OK, maybe $1k more for the more expensive engine, but consider how we'd all pay more for a V6 vs an inline 4 cylinder.
DIsposable cars, I mean isn't this a prblem waiting for a solution? Cars recycle better than most things right now, the major component steel, becomes structural steel for buildings.
In this respect I have to say Toyota and Honda are the most serious about improving our environmental impact. While they pay all due homage to hydogen fuel cell and interchangeable bodies and other "cool" concepts, they're selling practical highly efficient vehicles like the Prius and the Impact (there's a 5 door version out now, don't know what they call it). Of course, there's always been the 50 mpg Jetta if you really look. And all 3 companies have not a trace of US ownership.
It's about time they started making the things from carbon fibre (or even glass fibre), which is easily repaired, lightweight (therefore more fuel efficient), and totally immune to corrosion. The attitude that a car is a disposable commodity, to be tossed in the trash every couple of years is daft. I would rather see manufacturers offering upgrades to existing vehicle as an alternative.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
This is a concept intended as "proof of concept", and not for production.
If it were intended for production, there would be a lot more refinement of processes, materials, and even design elements involved, and a lot more details fothcoming about such elements. If it were intended for production, there would at least be focus groups involved in such things as its marketability in its current form (such as it is). Not to mention lobbying for the infrastructure necessary to get a car like this produced and feasably useable (hydrogen-refill stations, for one).
Instead, this seeks to prove that something, in theory, COULD be done. Recyclable body panels are nothing new (Ford had an aluminum concept several years ago, and the new Jaguar X-type owes its many production delays toward the use of aluminum). Even subassemblies can be salvaged. And Hydrogen fuel cells have been in limited use and testing for over a decade.
What's interesting about this, is the use of new materials for fluids (arguably the most cancerous of all automotive components) and plastics. I'm not a chemist, but the testing of new corn and soy-based polymers for everything from interior materials to fluids is fascinating to me. At the very best, if pursued such processes could finally wean the US (and manufacturing in other sectors outside of the auto industry) off petroleum-based plastics and fluids, which would be a gigantic leap forward for industry, without question.
The "modular interior/ exterior" BS is all just marketing of design concepts. That's there to show that designs can lead themselves toward being more eco-friendly in a subtler fashion. Going back to the salvage industry: It's a lot easier to find salvage parts from platform-sharing cars Cougar/Thunderbird/MarkVII, Cavalier/Sunfire, Chrysler K-car, etc etc etc) than it is for one-offs. This concept I think seeks to carry over that mentality on a larger scale, tho with the public's demand for unique vehicles I doubt we'll ever see swappable parts on a grand scale.
It will be years if not decades before something like this can be driven off the lot, but it's good to know that the ideas are being tested. This concept should be good for new materials processing if nothing more. The only trick will be to keep Ford and other companies pursuing this, as opposed to saying "Great, we know it's possible, now go mothball that POS in a barn somewhere and let's forget it ever saw the light of day".
~~~
"The slave thinks he is released from bondage, only to find a stronger set of chains" - NIN
Excellent points all around. Your thinking argues for an entirely different strategy.
You want true automotive recycling? Pursue greater modularity and standard across automakers. Decrease black-boxiness of parts (make them mechanic repairable as they once were).
Of course these goals, as always, are probably at cross purposes with others.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Recycling is only part of the whole point anyway. What's also at issue here is the process used to create the car, in how it effects the natural environment, the workers, and the end users of the product. Regardless of how recyclable a material is, MBDC doesn't like it if it exacts too high a cost to produce. Hence the car roof made out of simple biomaterials. They also don't like materials that off-gas potentially toxic chemicals -- for example, "new car smell", an enticing mix of plastics, glues, solvents, etc.
...about car manufacturers who boast about their cars being easily recycled instead of their cars being engineered to last a lifetime?
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
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This is more than just appeasing environmentalists. By designing and building a car that is easier to recycle, they reduce the cost of recycling. Which reduces the price of recycled materials. Which reduces the price of making new products from the recycled materials. If the US requires auto companies to take back and recycle their products, Ford has already reduced their cost of complying. There are already products in the US that manufacturers are require to take back for recycling.
Damn, I wish I could mod this guy up.
Better yet, it might be wise to bring back the days when cars were built almost entirely out of steel, not out of plastic and sheet metal like they are today. Those old cars could withstand collisions with just about anything short of a tractor/trailer (lorry for you Brits), and sometimes even then. You could actually walk away from a 20mph crash, instead of having to call for an ambulance.
If you can make a new car as crash-resistant as an old one, without using steel, that'll be great. If not... well, I care more about my safety than I do about miles per gallon. I agree that most people don't need gas guzzlers such as SUV's, but the sacrifice of auto safety on the altar of the environment has been going on for way too long.
Utilizing magnetic schemata since
that most of our electricity comes from fossil fuels, and recycling takes energy...and there's also the tiny detail that the price of a disposable car isn't going to be much, if at all, less than a normal car made of real parts due to R/D costs and the fact that there aren't convenient hydrogen stations across the nation lining our highways.
So unless something magically makes Ford decide to get with the oil companies and convert the stations while swapping their pricing model to something a little cheaper (say, 2 to 6 thousand dollars US), then I am quite sure that Henry Ford is rolling in his grave as they compare this to his Model T, because the Model T was nothing if not successful and affordable.
So until this all comes to pass, I think I'll stick with my Crown Vic, content with the fact that it doesn't keel over and die when I pass 100,000 miles on the odometer and the fact that I have only had to do non-preventative maintenance once.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Because of the European take-back regulations, BMW and other automakers have been designing their cars to be taken apart and recycled faster and easier for several years now.
Back in one of my environmental engineering classes, we saw a film on one of these take-back plants. It took a couple people just an hour or so to strip a BMW from all its recyclable parts, including stuff like draining (and saving) the fluids, pulling off all plastic parts, etc.
And BMW is always watching and feeding back into the design process. They've reduced the types of plastics used to have less bins and sorting involved. They've reduced the use of gluing, welding, and riveting of parts on and replaced with mechnical fasteners (screws, bolts), making it easier to take apart. Instead of a taillight assy having two types of plastic (lens, backshell) being glued or rivetted together, now its one type that may snap together.
German car fetishists may voice concern that stuff like this may reduce the quality or performance of their favorite vehicles, but to me that means they aren't as purist as they claim, they don't trust the same engineers that designed their favorite cars in the first place.
Also note, that the majority of stolen cars are stolen for their parts.
This is not because the parts are more valuable than the whole, at least not in the obvious way.
By stripping a stolen car for parts, the stolen materials become that much harder to track. The vehicle's VIN might be stamped on the engine block and the dashboard, but the muffler and the seats and the tires and the catalytic converter probably don't have any unique identifying marks at all. Once those are sold, the owner of the car has NO chance of recovering them.
It's bad enough that PC users are seeing their neighbor's keystrokes on their own screen due to imperfectly-designed wireless keyboards... it's bad enough that Fast Lane toll transponders are going dead because certain digital cell phones activate them and run down the batteries...
The possible unintended consequences of allowing components within an automobile to perform wireless communication boggle the mind. Backseat driving is one thing... accidentally driving a car next to you in an adjacent lane is another.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
He did not stutter, the concept is in fact called Cradle to Cradle. It's a concept presented in a book by the MDBC founders called, Cradle to Cradle [slashdot], in which they claim, rather reasonably, that you're not -really- recycling unless the product you produce is of equal or greater material quality than the product you started with.
If you take petroleum, and make soda bottles, and then you take soda bottles and make them into seat cushions and polyfill for coats, blankets, etc, you've recycled the material only once, but you can't recycle polyfill into anything useful, so it goes into the landfill when you're done with it.
You've recycled the material once, doubling its lifetime. In a perfect world, you're reducing the waste stream by only half, by making every coat from recycled material, and new bottle with new material. Cradle to Cradle says, let's make that soda bottle out of a plastic that can be broken down and made back into feedstock for making soda bottles, and coats out of material that can be made out of coats. In other words, returning it to the Cradle. Assuming some wear and tear on the materials, you still could expect to recycle more than 95% of the bottle back into another bottle. Now, in a perfect world, 19 of every 20 bottles is made from recycled material, ditto for coats.
Cradle to Grave just means someone is responsible for the eulogy, which will eventually be ours if we don't stop dumping high-grade materials into holes in the ground.
Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
The Hindenburg fire was not a hydrogen fire.
There's a lot about a modern car that's very difficult to recycle. Printed Circuit Boards have lead, plastic, and a myriad of other toxic things. Some kinds of plastic are expensive to recycle, and plastics with coloring agents are almost useless for reusing in the same type of product.
You also run into health issues (Like, did the previous owners let mold grow in the seats?)
What's this Submit thingy do?
Looks like the bastard child of a VW Thing (link includes pictures from Playboy! click now!) and a Pontiac Aztec. Yuck.
There is absolutely no reason for this when you have fuel-cell.
Notice they only talk about "Carbon dioxide emissions are nearly zero" - but that's not the whole story...
There are three major components to car emissions: Hydrocarbons, CO2, and NoX (CO should not be emitted at all)
Hydrogen, last i checked, burns hotter than gasoline; remember now that they are not carrying an onboard oxygen tank, so there are other crap that gets sucked into the combustion chamber - this includes the Oxygen that we need, a little bit of CO2, and a whole mass loads of Nitrogen.
the higher the combustion temperature, the more likely the nitrigen will become NoX (oxides nitrogen, IIRC - including NO2 NO3 etc, hence the X).
NOX is a major contributor to acid rain and the like - however since there are no more hydrocarbon emmissions (or, very little - CO2 needs a whole lot of energy to break apart) - the catalyc converter can't do jack about the NOX; so instead of worrying about global warming, we will simply have something else to worry over.
Two ways out of this:
1) use fuel cell - painstaking and difficult, but probably the most environmentally friendly. besides if you get it right electric motors have more torque anyhow - and real drivers know that torque = acceleration, horspower doesn't
2) carry some liquid oxygen onboard (yeah right) - infrastructure won't support it unless something serious changed - but would be very cool... I will see amature rocketry explode because you can get liquid O2 and H2 at refuelling stations now! =)
still better (CO2 side) than using reformers, but damn... not there yet. gotta wonder though - if they already went with a hydrogen tank, might as well just go with a fuel cell - that was probably the biggest prob w/ fuel cell in the first place
My life in the land of the rising sun.