PETA Survey Reveals New Car Models With Vegan Interiors From Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Renault, and Citroën
PETA Survey Reveals New Car Models With Vegan Interiors From Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Renault, and Citroën
London – As car companies go increasingly plant-based with vegan leathers, PETA polled car brands across Europe to see who’s meeting the demand for fully animal-free interiors, including seats, trims, and steering wheels. New standouts in PETA’s survey include the Mercedes-Benz Vito, Kia EV6, Renault Megane E-Tech Electric, Volvo C40 Recharge, and Citroën C4, while the minority of brands that have yet to offer wool- and leather-free options risk exclusion from the rapidly growing vegan market.
“With the abundance of innovative vegan car interiors, today’s compassionate consumers can opt for exceptionally designed, animal-friendly models,” says PETA Vice President Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA is calling on all car companies to embrace an eco-conscious and cruelty-free future by steering away from the destructive leather and wool industries.”
Car manufacturers that offer numerous vegan interior options, either as standard or upon request, include Citroën, Dacia, Ford, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Opel, Peugeot, Renault, smart, Toyota, and Vauxhall. Volvo recently announced that all of its electric cars now feature leather-free upholstery and that it aims for all its cars to be electric and leather-free by 2030.
A PETA UK video exposé revealed that calves are branded on the face and gentle cows and bulls are electroshocked and beaten before being slaughtered to be made into the leather interiors offered by the world’s largest car companies. It takes an average of three cows’ hides to cover the interior of a standard car. Turning animals’ skin into leather requires 130 different chemicals – including cyanide – and leather production has a massive carbon footprint.
The production of wool also exacerbates the climate catastrophe. Small ruminants, such as sheep and goats, are responsible for 474 million tonnes of carbon dioxide–equivalent greenhouse gas each year – a climate impact equal to that of 103 million cars. Exposés by PETA entities of 116 wool-production facilities in Australia, Europe, North America, and South America have documented that sheep are systematically beaten, mutilated, and even skinned alive for their wool.
PETA UK – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]
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