A team of students from the Eindhoven University of Technology have developed a new electric vehicle that captures and stores carbon dioxide from the air as it drives. 

Called the Zem (EM-07), the car is mainly constructed from lightweight recycled materials and has photovoltaic solar cells to increase range. 

Although the vehicle has zero tailpipe emission, the students wanted to go one better and actually have a vehicle that reduces CO2 as it operated. It thus uses, patent pending, air capture technology to clean air as it moves. This means it’s filters can remove up to 2kg of CO2 from the atmosphere for every 20,600 km travelled annually at an average speed of 60 kph. 

If such technology can be further developed and perfected there could be significant benefits for future EV production. Captured CO2 could also be used in the production of environmentally friendly concrete, synthetic fuels and plastics. 

Louise de Laat, the student team manager commented, "It is really still a proof-of-concept, but we can already see that we will be able to increase the capacity of the filter in the coming years. Capturing CO2 is a prerequisite for compensating for emissions during production and recycling.”