Ford mixed things up a bit when it introduced a special soy-based automotive foam to make up the seat cushions of many of its vehicles in 2008, but now the automaker has teamed up with BASF to produce a special new foam to make a soft-touch dashboard.
Ford and BASF have developed a seamless soft-touch dashboard that comes from plant-based castor oil and offers greater flexibility, durability and faster production than a traditional petroleum-based product.
“Working with BASF, we now can offer our North American customers the new Ford Focus with the industry’s first seamless soft-touch instrument panel that’s stronger, better-looking and better on the environment,” said Bari Brown, Ford advanced product development engineer. “Castor oil from plants helps deliver sustainable interior foam that reduces petroleum use while improving vehicle craftsmanship. It’s beneficial both for the customer and Mother Nature.”
Ford says the new material is “significantly more durable” than the material it used previously, offering 36 percent more tensile strength. Tear strength improved by five percent, while unwanted elongation from temperature or impact stress reduced by 12 percent.
The automaker says it will also reduce production time by 43 percent, an added benefit, but the real benefit and goal of the product was to create a more sustainable car that has a smaller impact on the environment.
Dan Pierce of Ford Motor Company told Leftlane that the automaker already has soy foam in 75 percent of its seats and most of its headliners, something it intends to eventually move to 100 percent. With the new castor oil-based foam for the dashboards, Ford intends to take a similar path towards eventually completely phasing out traditional petroleum-based foam in all of its products.
Pierce says the new dashboard has been slowly integrated into the 2012 Focus product lineup, and is now at 100 percent utilization in all models being built.
Link to original Article (Link)
Ford Focus sales in America 2010: 172,421 units
Conclusion: Castor oil is the best replacement product for crude oil. In-fact castor oil properties are better than petroleum based products (as mentioned above). The only reason crude oil replaced castor oil was because "Crude oil" was cheaper and abundant. Now with crude oil prices at $ 80-100 USD and Peak oil a reality.. Castor oil will fast replace Crude..
Maybe the real underlying reason could be the virtual ban by European Union of crude oil based plasticiser (- Bio-Plasticiser Surge in Demand )
Jayant Agro Organics is the largest processor of Castor oil in India
Market Cap: Rs 1,249 million
Year end March 2011
- Sales: Rs11,719.9 million
- PBDIT: Rs 634.5 million
- Net Profit: Rs 245.7 million
Deep Deep Value and a must have (only for long term investment)
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2 comments:
Prahalad:
Loans and Advances 94.64(2011) 47.71(2010). Can we consider Loans and Advances as Short term asset i.e as Current Asset.
secured loan is 115.05cr out of which WC Increase is 100Cr from last year(this includes L&A which is 46.93 cr..)
Inventory Increase 49.57Cr.
Sundry Debtors Increase 16.24cr.
MOney used from Cash and Bank Balance 7.26cr and Provisions is 4.92 cr
49.57+16.24+46.93 -7.26-4.92 =100.56 cr
remainig Fund is applied to Gross block and Capital Work and reducing Unsecured Loans 15.5 cr.
That means they are using Long term secured loan to reduce unsecured loan.
why does normally loans and advances increase?
Does it suggest they are not able to get money back from business or dealers.
Purushottam:
Which company are you talking about??
Current Assets: Loans and advances are considered as current assets if you expect them to be paid/consumed within 12 months..
Pls look up in the annual report and management will give a breakup..
Loans and advances for jayant (consolidated 2011 is as follows)
- Excise & Other taxes recoverable: 34.89Cr
- Advances recoverable in cash or kind: 28.72Cr
- Deposits: 4.78Cr
================
Loans and advances can increase due to many reasons.. cannot generalize.. Though if you can make your working capital -ve which means you can hold back your debtors and get paid upfront .. which generates a lot of free cash..
companies like HUL are great companies because they have control over their creditors..
hope that helps
=happy investing
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