Focusing on sustainability as a core part of business strategy, Ford is investigating a wide range of renewable materials as potential raw material for its automotive vehicles’ components.

Ford is heavily focusing on remanufacturing, recycling and rebuilding new engines from used parts.

The “Ford Core Recovery Program” oversees collection, remanufacturing, and recycling of damaged parts from Ford vehicles. A new addition to this includes remanufacturing engines. Remanufacturing an engine moves it from single to multiple lifecycles by rebuilding a new engine from reused, repaired, or reused parts. An old engine that might go to scrap or be reused with lower efficiency is remanufactured with specifications similar to the original engine.

In 2015, Ford developed Plasma Transferred Wire Arc (PTWA) coating technology to remanufacture engines with a significantly lower economic and environmental cost. The technology applies a spray to the inside of a worn-out engine block and restores it to original factory condition.

As part of renewable materials as potential raw material for its automotive vehicles’ components, shrub called Guayule, found in Arizona, is being investigated there for its potential to reduce the amount of rubber that is imported for use in auto production.

Further plant-based rubber alternatives Ford is looking into include dandelions, sunflowers, and sugarcane.



Some of the benefits achieved by Ford include a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions compared with producing a new engine, an increased productivity combined with stronger, lighter, and higher-performing engine blocks and a notable lower vehicle weight (PTWA allows automakers to reduce cylinder block weight and eliminate design restrictions). By enabling automakers to improve durability, PTWA provides additional long-term benefits that ultimately help reduce overall costs.