January 11th 2017
Students from Eindhoven present Lina, world’s first structural bio-based car
TU/ecomotive is a student team from the Eindhoven University of Technology. On the 11th of
January they presented their fourth concept car: Lina. The world’s first car that will be structurally
built from bio-composites.
Bio-based car
Lina is an electric city car designed to seat four people. As she weighs just 300 kilograms, she is very
efficient. Her little weight is a result of an innovative material which has never been structurally used
in a car before: bio-composite. This biological composite is a combination of Flax fibres and a 100%
bio-PLA. Two sheets of flax fibres will be pressed around the honeycomb PLA plate to form a
composite that is strong enough to create a chassis for Lina, whilst still being very light weight. The
result is a supporting chassis which, for 90%, will consist of biological materials.
Car manufacturers are implementing light materials like carbon fibre and aluminium more often. This
will result in a lighter and thus more efficient car. Unfortunately, these materials need extreme
amounts of energy for manufacturing. In comparison, the embodied energy of carbon fibre is five
times greater than the embodied energy of steel, the material which it replaces. The car of the future
needs a production method with less embodied energy and carbon dioxide emissions. By using more
biological and sustainable materials, TU/ecomotive is showing this view for the future is possible.
They call it: “Reducing while producing”.
Flax plants can be cultivated locally, excluding the need for extensive transport measures of the main
construction material. One more advantage of Flax, it being a plant, is that it will consume carbon
dioxide from the air and replaces it with oxygen. Therefore, Lina already starts reducing her emissions
while growing.
User friendly
Lina will use the newest NFC technology to be everybody’s car. A device containing a NFC-chip can be
granted a key to the car. When the door is unlocked, Lina will recognize which user is getting into the
car. Personal settings like music playlists, phone contacts and recent destinations can be loaded in the
system right away. Additionally, this technology can be used for future car sharing applications. The
car keeps track of driven kilometres and battery usage to determine the costs per user. Car sharing is
an upcoming trend in urban areas, which is supported by TU/ecomotive, as it reduces the number of
cars needed per inhabitant, and therefore further reduce polluting emissions.
Car of the future
Lina is the world’s first car to be structurally built from bio-composite materials. As a result, she is not
only efficient and practical, but also durable from production until she end up at the recycling
services. Through the newest NFC technology Lina can be used for car sharing services and still feel
like your own car. To show that these futuristic innovations can be used today, Lina will be tested by
the RDW to obtain a Dutch license plate. TU/ecomotive will present their finished concept car in the
summer of 2017.
Note for the editorial office (not for publication)
For additional information, please contact:
Noud van de Gevel (PR & media Manager TU/ecomotive, +316 83 21 53 88) or
Quinten Oostvogel (Team Manager TU/ecomotive, +316 41 02 13 16).