Henry Ford and the plant-based car
INNOVATION: Among his many inventions, visionary pioneered the use of organics for vehicle components
If you’re going to be stranded in the middle of nowhere after some disaster, natural or otherwise, you might want to be stuck there with a Ford product. Although I can’t promise you’ll magically turn into a mechanic or a MacGyver, you’ll at least have something to eat.
For over a decade, Ford has been experimenting with swapping out components of its cars to use plantbased products instead of petroleum-based ones. In setting up strategic partnerships with agricultural interests on both sides of the border, they’ve paved the way for the car industry to incorporate, and find ways to incorporate, things like soy, corn, tomatoes, wheat, coconut, bamboo, algae, dandelion and sugar cane. Sound like a feast? Ford thought so, too.
They invited some journos and foodies recently to Actinolite, a topflight Toronto restaurant where they put the chef and his staff to perhaps the ultimate test: make a car taste good. The automobile industry comes under fire from environmentalists, and the fact is, no car makes the environment better. You can read elaborate explanations that creating batteries for hybrids and electrics saps more of the earth’s elements and creates more pollution during its birth than it will ever negate, and there are several studies debating the impact of using various fuel sources.
According to the automaker, the average Ford vehicle uses between 20 and 40 pounds of renewable materials — with almost 300 parts, across various platforms, derived from sources such as soybeans, cotton, wood, flax, jute and natural rubber.
But actually sourcing components in a farmer’s field isn’t the whole story. It’s about finding ways to use the throwaways — parts of the plant that are currently burned or discarded — and finding ways to use this former refuse to replace expensive oil-based parts. There are stumbling blocks; initial tests, displayed in the test labs in Dearborn, Michigan, show soy-based foam looking like everything from bad movie popcorn to crazy cloud-shaped explosions. These natural products are broken down to their molecular level, and then the work begins; they have to meet strict safety standards, be predictable in both performance and lifespan, and be able to be produced at volume. This often requires innovating new tools and production scenarios, because food frequently doesn’t act like the things it is replacing. It’s a long-term project and venture that Ford has been committed to for nearly 15 years now.
Every Ford sold today contains naturally derived components. They’re usually things you don’t think much about, like soy foam head rests or wheat hull-reinforced plastic storage boxes. Carpet fibres might be from recycled clothing; castor oil-based fuel lines and soybean oil-based gaskets and seals; cellulose-reinforced plastic increasingly takes the place of glass-reinforced plastic.
The goal is twofold: Make use of renewable products while achieving the goal of lowering weight to improve fuel economy.
This idea of looking to nature is hardly new for Ford.
Fordlândia, an entire town carved out of the Brazilian rainforest in 1929 by Henry Ford, was a fascinating precursor to his company’s back-to-the-land thesis. The impetus then was to break a stranglehold held by rubber barons who had a monopoly on rubber production, which Ford needed for tires. His idea? Grow his own. To that end, he transplanted what he had — production capability, workers and a support community — to a place that had what he didn’t: rubber. The idea was awesome, on paper. Believing his engineers could surely create a rubber forest, he let them have at it. In the meantime, a total slice of Americana bloomed in the jungle.
“It included a power plant, a modern hospital, a library, a golf course, a hotel and rows of white clapboard houses with wicker patio furniture. As the town’s population grew, all manner of businesses followed, including tailors, shops, bakeries, butcher shops, restaurants and shoemakers. It grew into a thriving community with Model T Fords frequenting the neatly paved streets,” writes Alan Bellows in his article, “The Ruins of Fordlândia.”
In addition to workers brought from home, Ford hired locals to work on the project, but decided they would have to behave the way he wanted. No booze, no local food, no gambling, no dancing girls.
The locals eventually revolted, the rubber trees failed to thrive, the Brazilian military was forced to wade in and the remnants of the town are now a curiosity you can visit if you happen to be down that way.
Ford was roundly lambasted for not doing his botanical homework for starters, for failing to recognize the human factors involved in understanding people, and because sometimes you simply can’t bend things to your will, no matter how much money you throw at it.
The true loss? His failure with both Fordlândia and a later attempt farther down the river called Belterra contributed to the widespread use of synthetic rubber. Synthetic rubber, which is made from petroleum. The very thing this company is now pushing back against.
So, while hearing that Ford is looking for ways to turn tomato skins into bio-plastics or rice hulls into wire harnesses, the truth is that the idea was germinating in the mind of its inventor a century ago.
The recent dinner, with a menu featuring soybean custard, bamboo with kelp, and tomato with algae (not gonna lie — some of these things weren’t as good as the others), was an elegant and elevated reminder that we have to find a way to work with the planet, even if you’re a car company. Oh, and if you’re stranded with that Ford? Eat anything made from corn first. Yum.