The Honda SUSTAINA-C concept is an electric car that might relieve us from the limitations of limited resources.
The Honda SUSTAINA-C is a new concept vehicle first shown at the Japan Mobility Show earlier this year. The body of the vehicle is made from reusing acrylic resin materials. The Honda SUSTAINA-C was developed to make the change from their finite resources to recycled acrylic resin. This concept has been introduced to ensure the joy of moving around in a vehicle in the future while prioritising protection of the environment. Globally, measures need to be taken to protect the environment. Honda aim to succeed in addressing all the environmental problems while enabling people to freely move around without global restrictions being placed on vehicles.
The Honda SUSTAINA-C uses acrylic because it has outstanding weather resistance and a very smooth surface. Acrylic resin has excellent transparency and colouring properties. It gives a high-quality design without the use of coating. Acrylic resin is used in headlights and taillights.
As Honda need to use recycled acrylic, which has some technical complications, they have to collect and suitably recycle the acrylic, which means that the thermal energy emitted while recycling needs to be recovered and used. The acrylic resin has a drawback where it could crack easily and break when impact is applied to the material. Which in turn leads to difficulty in making car panels out of acrylic resin. But Honda have overcome this problem by a joint development project with Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation. They developed an advanced recycling technology to make the quality level of the recycled acrylic which is equivalent to the new ones. The new acrylic resin material has highly impact resistance and mouldability. Honda has been testing to prevail over the weakness of the acrylic material.
An additional feature in the Honda SUSTAINA-C is on a screen-like tailgate. The transparent glass of the hatch has led the whole tailgate to be formed as a single panel. The tail lamp light is transferred from the rear side of the acrylic using miniature LED display LEDs. The display lights indicate the charge level while parking, in addition to serving as lamp lighting.
Story: Ajay Sujay Hanje
