Buyers in some of the world’s biggest car markets regard leather as the signature of premium luxury in car interiors. It’s expensive and relatively difficult to work with, though, so automakers and suppliers have long tried to differentiate with leatherlike alternative materials like polyurethane leatherette and Alcantara suede. None of these has really succeeded so far, but pressure to move away from leather is growing, as raising cattle and producing leather heavily contributes to pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and animal harm and suffering.
Several new leather alternatives have popped up recently in car interiors. Volvo’s Weave Tech coating in the Polestar 2, Aston Martin’s cashmere in Lagonda models…and Volkswagen put an apple-based synthetic leather in their ID Roomzz electric SUV concept presented at the Shanghai Motor Show.
The material, called AppleSkin™ and already used in the furnishing industry, is partly made from apple-juice waste including cores and skin from the fruit. It has been described by Volkswagen as a ‘renewable raw material’. The manufacturing process uses 100% of the apples, crushed, dried, powdered and, after some coagulation processes and patented expertise, the result is a soft-touch, eco-friendly, vegan material with a wide range of colours.
It’s not just apples, either; Piñatex, for example, is a synthetic leather based on cellulose fibres from pineapple leaves.
