Mercedes-Benz is taking “green” technology to a whole new level. No, we’re not talking about hybrids or low fuel emission models, we’re talking about a brand new concept in automotive design.
Unveiled at the Los Angeles Design Challenge, the Mercedes BIOME is the first concept car to move away from the heavy metal production line and move into the lab.
That’s right. This car is grown in a laboratory.
Mercedes-Benz has re-envisioned the one ton steel standard, designing a car made out of a steel-alternative called BioFibre. BioFibre is lighter than metal and plastic yet stronger than steel.
If used in a car, the car would weigh around 875.5 pounds and would also be entirely biodegradable.
Since BioFibre can be grown in a lab, Mercedes has been toying with the idea of growing its very own car based on the idea of symbiosis. Symbiosis in nature represents seamless efficiency between key players.
The idea is that the vehicle would collect energy from the sun and store it within the bonds of a fuel alternative, the only by-product of which is oxygen, appropriately nicknamed BioNectar4534.
The car would work with nature, and Mercedes has already developed technology to retrofit trees with receptors, which would allow us to harvest their excess solar energy into BN4534.
This initiative is suppose to be incentive to plant more trees and collect more energy to create a self sustaining example of symbiosis.
Apply those concepts to a car and the BIOME would not hurt the environment or be wasteful in any way, kind of like a “partnership with nature.”
A far cry from Detroit’s current idea of automotive design, indeed.
“The interior of the BIOME grows from the DNA in the Mercedes star on the front of the vehicle, while the exterior grows from the star on the rear,” Mercedes-Benz explained.
“To accommodate specific customer requirements, the Mercedes star is genetically engineered in each case, and the vehicle grows when the genetic code is combined with the seed capsule. The wheels are grown from four separate seeds.”
When asked about his inspiration for the car, Hubert Lee, head of Mercedes-Benz advanced design studios said, “As the inventor of the motor car, we wanted to illustrate the vision of the perfect vehicle of the future, which is created and functions in complete symbiosis with nature.
“The Mercedes-Benz BIOME is a natural technology hybrid, and forms part of our earth’s ecosystem. It grows and thrives like the leaves on a tree.”
What a beautiful concept!
What looks like a cross between the Bat Mobile and a stealth jet, the BIOME is currently only a concept car.
But with the strong movement towards greener technology, perhaps the BIOME does stand a chance in the competitive automotive industry.
Is this type of car possible? Perhaps. Is it a welcome change from a gas guzzling hunk of steel? Absolutely.
(Via Gizmag, Diseno-Art, BenzInsider)
