In January 2017, students from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands unveiled the world’s first car made almost entirely from bio-based materials.
Dubbed “Lina,” the four-seat electric car weighs just 661 pounds. The chassis and body were built from a honeycomb core made from polylactic acid (PLA)—a bioplastic derived from sugar beets—sandwiched between sheets of a flax-based composite material. The structure has a similar strength-to-weight ratio to that of fiberglass.