Roll Your Own: The Electric Car Made From Hemp

Dec 4

Written by: Aaron Turpen   658 views    

Published on December 4th, 2008 in Electric Cars, Featured

Lotus Eco Elise

Lotus recently unveiled the Eco-Elise, an environmentally-friendly concept car made partially from hemp. Several of the body panels on this concept Elise are made from hemp materials, which is much more lightweight than metal. Plus, hemp is a renewable material that absorbs CO2, making it zero-sum. And the hemp used for this car was grown in the same neighborhood as the manufacturing plant, eliminating the need for long transportation of materials.

If this trend catches on, maybe you can mellow out in one of these sporty hemp mobiles one day too.

Alright, alright, before all you hempheads start chastising me about how “hemp is not marijuana” and all that, I’ll come clean: I know the difference. Comon. I couldn’t avoid the Up In Smoke references. It’s too easy! Besides, there aren’t any cars in Half Baked, so I’m limited to Cheech & Chong references here.

Okay, back to the car: it’s basically a Lotus Elise with hemp panels, an integrated rooftop solar array (to power subsystems) and lots of green hype. No word on whether they plan to go with further developments like a hybrid power train or other options.

It’s a good concept on one level, though: it’s possible to make cars that are nearly 100% biodegradable if we’ll just get out of the steel and plastic rut we keep riding in. Although if you’re going with hemp, maybe some warning labels about lighting it on fire and the possibility of giving that cop who pulled you over the munchies.

Kinda grabs you by the poo-poo, don’t it?

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5 Responses to “Roll Your Own: The Electric Car Made From Hemp”

  1. Bryan Ribas said on December 5th, 2008 at 12:18 pm

    and why again are we the only industrialized nation that will not allow our farmers to grow hemp? o I forgot the paramedicals

  2. Harry said on May 10th, 2009 at 1:47 am

    This article is stupid as it reinforces the misconception that hemp = marijuana.
    In 1938 faced with total catastrophe the US government made one of its’ most spectacular reversals.
    MAGICALLY overnight US Gov made hemp legal- arguing it had nothing in common with marijuana/cannabis.
    Why- US soldiers needed webbing and rope- and manila hemp was no longer viable.
    Ford made the first all-hemp pressed boy.
    Hemp is banned in the US by stupid Right wing corrupt politicians, getting backhanders from DuPont and the Pharmo-pirates.
    Third world nations grow hemp- it’s a traditional and excellent product
    Even Australia and the UK now allow fully legal hemp mass agriculture.
    Yet again US is found to be decades behind the rest of the world.
    World leaders my ass.

  3. Harry said on May 10th, 2009 at 1:49 am

    PS-
    it was US Steel backhanders to US politicians that put the Ford Hemp car out of production.
    USA: The best democracy money can buy

  4. Sebastian Schepis said on May 10th, 2009 at 2:51 pm

    @Harry - don’t be such a dope. We love hemp in all it’s forms here, but we’re not politically correct, nor do we want to be. It’s your body, do what you want to it, but don’t try to regulate our speech. We believe in the merits of Hemp as much as you do, but we’re not above a little hemp humor here at ZoomiLife. If you want PC, go to HuffPo. And maybe smoke a little too - for a liberal, you sure are an angry guy.

  5. AaronT said on May 10th, 2009 at 3:09 pm

    Harry, I’m the guy who wrote that article. While your points are correct, they’re irrelevant to the article itself. I was merely making light of the fact that they made a very small portion of the car out of hemp.

    I don’t have a problem with legalization. In fact, I’m one of those pure libertarian anarchists that thinks EVERYTHING should be legal. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think some things are funny.

    I apologize if I wasn’t PC enough for you. I’m with Archie Bunker, who said “I’m not racist, I hate everybody.” I laugh at jokes that make fun of white people who can’t dance, black people who eat watermelon, Dan Quayle for being stupid, Al Gore for being a hypocrite, and yes, even hemp=marijuana jokes.

    Besides, Cheech & Chong made a van out of marijuana in the same way you’d make it out of hemp. Right? That was pretty funny, I thought.

    I apologize if my humor is offensive to you. Feel free to attempt some of your own. I bet you’ll find it hard to offend me with it.

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