Meet Luca, the electric car built from ocean waste
Students at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands have built Luca – an electric car made almost entirely from recycled waste.
Matthijs Van Wijk, who worked on the project as a media representative, told Drive the year-and-a-half manufacturing process represented a significant feat of engineering.
“I’m so proud that we could make the chassis with ocean plastic – this is a really very difficult material to recycle, because there are so many different types of plastic in different conditions, be we still managed to implement it structurally,” Mr Van Wijk said.
"It’s difficult to say exactly how much of the overall car is recycled, but we’ve estimated that it’s more than 95 per cent," he added.
The car is powered by two motors – one on each axle – and these combine for a humble power output of 12kW.
However, the car’s light weight, streamlined profile, and narrow tyres allow it to hit a top speed of 90km/h.
Voltage is drawn from six batteries scavenged from disused road cars, and these give Luca an impressive range of 220km.
“I don’t think [this will necessarily become the norm], but I expect there to be more and more biodegradable and recycled materials especially for interiors in the future,” Mr Van Wijk added.
“It would be a dream for us to one day see a car like Luca driving on the public roads.”
You can watch the build process highlights below.