There are now said to be over 88 million vegans across the world, with a rapid increase of those numbers. Here in New Zealand, according to the World Population Review, approximately 2% of the population, which is around 100,000 people, are said to be living a vegan lifestyle. A study by The Vegan Society said that a huge 34% of the population are eating less or no meat, with around 40% buying vegan toiletries and healthcare products ‘every time’ or ‘often’ – showing a huge interest in cruelty-free items.
Whether motivated by the prevention of animal cruelty, health concerns, budget constraints, environmental awareness, or a mixture of those, more and more people are looking to live without consuming or using animal products.
While on the surface, you may consider the obvious vegan choices to be the food you consume, the clothes you wear and the cosmetics you use, it actually also affects the car you drive! From the leather used for interiors, to stearic acid in car tyres, many car brands and models include these materials as standard. So how can you try and make your car vegan?
Here’s how you can choose, or at least veer towards, vegan alternatives!
Leather upholstery has been seen as a stylish luxury for many years, especially when it comes to the interior of your car. Unfortunately, leather is problematic in a number of ways. Vegans believe it is a cruel and exploitative use of animals for their hides. They are also concerned about the environmental issues that can come with leather production, including unsustainable livestock rearing and habitat destruction.
The good news is that there are now many alternative, vegan-friendly upholstery types available. In fact, the demand for leather alternatives in the automobile industry has quickly built a synthetic leather market said to be worth billions.
Artico is a vinyl based leather substitute that is designed to look and feel like the real thing. Another leather-look alternative is Alcantara, a microfibre material made of polyester and polyurethane. It looks and feels just like suede, but no cows are harmed in its manufacture.
If you aren’t bothered about your car seats replicating leather, then of course there are numerous options. In our sustainable car manufacturing blog we covered the extraordinary recycled materials being produced, such as Ford’s Repreve – a hybrid fibre made from recycled plastic water bottles and post-industrial waste, which has been widely available as a seat fabric in the Ford Focus since 2012.
If you are buying a new car, be sure to ask the manufacturer if you are unsure about whether the upholstery is vegan friendly. Most will have non-leather alternatives that go by different names. Manufacturers such as Ford, Nissan, Honda and Mercedes offer models with vegan material used as standard, but these car brands and many others will also have vegan alternatives on request where leather is used as standard.
It’s not just car seats that are commonly made of leather. Various interior surfaces and components may be too, including trims, handles, panels and dashboards.
However, the car industry is undergoing a huge shift in focus towards circular economy. With an emphasis on recycling and sustainability, the happy by-product is that there are innovative materials being created throughout the automotive market, which also happen to be vegan-friendly.
There are numerous vehicle manufacturers making headway in this area. Mazda is using recycled PET plastic bottles for internal door panels, BMW is using natural kenaf fibres in the door panels of its i3 electric cars, Mitsubishi’s I-Miev has door trim made from recycled polypropylene, and the Range Rover Velvar is sold with a full range of artificial trim. Volvo has developed an interior material called Nordico, which even contains corks recycled from the wine industry. The Nissan Leaf uses plastic pellets made from repurposed waste electrical appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines to manufacture the cars’ centre console.
Photo Credit: Sean Wotherspoon designed Porsche Taycan 4 Cross Turismo
There are also designers influencing the market with exciting vegan choices. Sean Wotherspoon, celebrated streetwear designer, created his own take on The Porsche Taycan 4 Cross Turismo. Clearly taking inspiration from his iconic sneakers, and as a staunch vegan himself, this striking car also uses sustainable, animal-friendly materials from corduroy to cork! And you can’t argue the results look incredible. These ‘designer’ cars may not be mainstream, but they do influence the market at large.
If you are buying a new car and the standard model includes leather trim you can always request an alternative from the manufacturer, as you would for he upholstery, it may well be an option for your chosen model. If not, there may be a similar car with vegan-friendly alternatives, so be sure to shop around. Either way your request will have increased the demand for leather alternatives.
If you are restricted to a specific car model for whatever reason, but you are uncomfortable using a leather steering wheel or gear cover for example, it’s relatively easy to have your car fitted with a faux-leather alternative.
Did you know that the majority of car tyres are manufactured using stearic acid, which is commonly derived from various animal fats? This means there is a very good chance the tyres on your current car contain animal products.
Stearic acid is included to strengthen the rubber and help them maintain shape under pressure, without sacrificing grip, so it’s considered an essential ingredient of a good tyre. However, the good news is that stearic acid doesn’t have to come from animals (even though it commonly does) it can come from plant and vegetable-based products too.
Although there is no official certification available, Michelin have been quoted confirming they do not use animal fat to source stearic acid. The company Kenda is also known to produce vegan tyres – using stearic acid derived from refined tree oil.
Dunlop, Goodyear, Pirelli and Continental all have vegan options, but that does not apply to their full range, so you would need a representative to confirm which options are available and whether those tyres are suitable for your car.
Another less obvious use of animal products in a car is in the steel components. Tallow, or rendered beef/mutton fat, is widely used as a lubricant in the steel industry. The general move towards sustainability has seen some steel manufacturing using synthetic lubricants, but tallow is still the most common choice.
So, can you reduce the steel usage in a car? Some manufacturers have researched solutions for safe but lighter vehicles using alternative materials. This drive is to satisfy a number of demands, namely, to improve fuel efficiency, improve performance, reduce costs and improve environmental friendliness. To that end, many cars are now being produced with increased plastic and aluminium components. However, steel is still unrivaled for safety. Another huge plus for the use of steel is that it’s easily and effectively recycled, while aluminium and vehicle plastics are far harder to separate and process as part of a circular economy.
There are vehicles successfully using less steel. The Renault’s Twizy is made almost entirely out of plastic, with the only steel component being the chassis frame. As an EV and with no animal-sourced materials in its production, this little car is actually PETA-approved. But as an open-sided, two-seater, it’s far from suitable for the majority of car buyers.
An electric vehicle (EV) fits in well with a vegan lifestyle. They do not give off harmful emissions, which benefits both humans and wildlife directly, as well as having a wider positive environmental impact.
The rapid rise in the popularity of EVs is a huge step towards a more eco-friendly and sustainable car industry. Where price was a barrier to many vegans, there is now a growing market of used EVs, as well as plenty of entry level electric cars that are not significantly more expensive than their fossil fuel counterparts.
The iconic EV is of course a Tesla and the Model S is pretty close to being fully vegan-friendly, using a synthetic leather and Alcantara trim as standard.
If an EV is still out of your price range, or just not an option due to logistical charging issues, you can still make a difference by reducing your carbon footprint and choosing a vehicle that is eco-friendly. Driving a vehicle with a lower fuel consumption will not only save you money, but will also be using less fossil fuels, meaning lower emissions and contributing to cleaner air.
The government states that transport emissions are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand, accounting for 20% of all the emissions we produce. Nearly 70% of all transport CO2 emissions are from cars, SUVs, utes, vans and light trucks. To tackle this, the government has launched the Clean Car Standard to ensure our market has a good supply of low and zero CO2 emission light vehicles for New Zealanders to buy.
A low emission vehicle is one that produces less than 100g of carbon dioxide for every kilometre travelled. Very low emission vehicles produce less than 50g per kilometre. Selecting any vehicle in these categories is a positive choice for vegans.
As with much of this list, there is no perfect solution when it comes to vegan-friendly driving, but lowering your emissions is a clear area where you can make a difference that benefits animals and their environment.
After explaining the benefits of newer, invariably EV or low emission cars, this piece of advice for vegan-friendly driving might seem like a contradiction. But there are a number of reasons why buying an older car can help make it more vegan friendly…
By buying used instead of new, you are supporting the important process of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. While here at CarTakeBack we are clearly 100% in support of recycling cars, it’s important to reduce the demand for raw materials and maintain a healthy used car market by re-using vehicles with life left for the road. You can still search for low emission options and you can retrofit a second hand car with many vegan-friendly components, such as a non-leather steering wheel, without the high prices those parts might cost as options in a new model.
As we’ve explained throughout the blog, there are numerous areas of the car manufacturing process that are problematic from a vegan point of view, whether that’s tyre production, leather upholstery or steel. By buying used, you are neither directly supporting the manufacturing process, nor contributing to the demand yourself.
As things currently stand, mainly because of the varied source of steel and the billions of manufactured components produced across the globe, there aren’t any cars that can be truly 100% vegan.
However, veganism is generally agreed to be a way of living that excludes exploitation of animals as far as is possible and practicable. So, doing whatever you can will still make a big difference. You might not be able to buy a completely vegan car, but as you’ve read, whatever your budget and restrictions, there are plenty of vegan-friendly options for new cars and parts within the industry. With sustainability as a driving force for the market and an ever growing demand for vegan options, the future is certainly animal friendly.
