Over the past several years, Ford worked with suppliers to evaluate the viability of using bamboo in vehicle interiors and to make extra strong parts by combining it with plastic. The team has found that bamboo performs comprehensively better than other tested synthetic and natural fibers in a range of materials tests, from tensile strength tests to impact strength tests.
Janet Yin, a materials engineering supervisor at Ford’s Nanjing Research & Engineering Centre, and her team have researched the use of bamboo for vehicle parts because of its tensile strength – or how much it can resist being pulled apart – which can rival or even better some types of metal.