The 2013 Focus Electric is the first Ford vehicle to have an interior made from 100 percent clean technology.? Its seats are made from REPREVE?-based fabrics, which are made from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET).? It takes about 22 recycled bottles to make the fabric for the Focus seats.
?Ford is committed to delivering vehicles with leading fuel efficiency while targeting at least 25 percent clean technology in interior materials across our lineup,? says Carol Kordich, lead designer of Sustainable Materials for Ford. ?The Focus Electric highlights this commitment as Ford?s first gas-free vehicle, and the first in the automotive industry to use branded REPREVE.?
?After decades of education, the United States PET bottle recycling rate is only at 29 percent, about half the rate of Europe,? said Roger Berrier, president and COO of Unifi Inc. ??We hope this recycling initiative with Ford will help raise visibility around the importance of recycling with a goal to drive recycling rates to 100 percent, diverting millions of plastic bottles from entering the waste stream and potentially back into REPREVE-branded fibers.?
The REPREVE seat fabric is a polyester fiber made from a hybrid blend of recycled materials, including post-industrial fiber waste and post-consumer waste such as the plastic water bottles made of PET.
?Using REPREVE also reduces energy consumption by offsetting the need to use newly refined crude oil for production. The technology meets all Ford design and comfort requirements to help ensure the Focus Electric and other vehicles meet the company?s high performance standards.
?We aimed to make the Focus Electric the most overall sustainable vehicle available to consumers, from using clean technology to overall vehicle efficiency,? said Kordich.
?Ford?s ?Reduce, Reuse and Recycle? commitment is part of the company?s broader global sustainability strategy to reduce its environmental footprint while at the same time accelerating the development of advanced, fuel-efficient vehicle technologies around the world.
