The Lotus Eco Elise

In their attempt to produce the greenest car in the neighborhood, Lotus not only focused on CO2 emissions during the operation of the vehicle, but also at the emissions required to produce the vehicle. For their body panels and spoilers they used a hemp composite material instead of the traditional carbon fiber (one can’t help but wonder if this idea was inspired by the Weed-mobile from Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke). The car was painted using water-based paint, the seats are covered with dye-free biodegradable woolen fabrics, and the carpets are made from sisal, a plant where no chemical fertilizers are used during farming. At their Hethel England headquarters they recycle 57% of their waste and have been able to reduce electricity consumption by 14%, gas 30% and water 11% from their 2006 levels.

But make no mistake, the fine folks over at Lotus have also kept sustainability in mind when working on the car’s performance. Using as many lightweight materials as possible they’ve managed to shave approximately 100lbs of fat off the car making it more fuel efficient, while installing solar panels in the roof to help generate usable energy during the car’s operation. According to an article at http://greenupgrader.com Lotus is also developing a “Tri-fuel” engine that would run on gas, ethanol or methanol.