What is Vegan Leather?

If you read the reviews and feature stories here at Car Talk or other automotive publications, you'll find that more and more, genuine leather is on the outs. Just as our society is questioning how we power our cars, trucks, and SUVs, Americans are trending green and becoming more averse to any products made at the expense of animals. The new trend in automobile manufacturing is to avoid any controversial materials such as genuine leather, in favor of vegan leather, synthetic microfiber suede, and other new-generation textiles and plastics.

Who Came Up With Vegan Leather?

People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) takes credit for the vegan leather movement. On its website, PETA posted a story in January of 2021 with the title and teasers, “Will Your Next Car Have a Vegan Interior? Probably, Thanks to PETA.” The organization says in its own publications, “Years ago, we put vegan car interiors on the map.” Today, PETA claims that as many as 15 manufacturers offer models with vegan interiors due to the group’s efforts.

PETA finds not just leather cruel to animals, but also textiles made from sheep wool. The group claims that leather products and other animal-based materials are ‘Three times worse for the environment than vegan products are,” and that making leather requires 130 different chemicals. PETA also states that manufacturing genuine leather pollutes groundwater, an allegation anyone who grew up in the Metro Boston area will quickly believe since many of us lived through water contamination from tanneries. Those Superfund sites are still with us today.

Let’s consider some facts about leather and wool, and also consider some facts about the materials that are replacing them. First, both leather and wool have proven to be sustainable. Hides have been used by humans since there were humans. According to Smithsonian Magazine, modern man has uncovered tools used to work leather dating back 120,000 years. It’s hard to argue that animal products are not sustainable, since they are among the oldest things we know of.

How is Vegan Leather Made?

Vegan leather is made from plastic. Usually polyurethane. While leather may involve 130 chemicals in its manufacturing, its replacement is 100% chemical in nature. Many of the first vehicles to adopt vegan leather interiors were green vehicles like those from Tesla and Kia. Ironically, vegan leather requires fossil fuels for production. The whole point of electric vehicles was to move away from reliance on fossil fuels.

What Happens to Vegan Leather at the End of its Life?

Materials like polyurethane-based vegan leathers are not biodegradable. Nor are materials made from polyurethane easy to return to the same duty by recycling the way glass and aluminum products can be. Rather, the way polyurethane materials are recycled - if they are recycled - is by chemical or mechanical breakdown. They are sometimes used for padding and soundproofing stock.

What is Microfiber Suede?

Suede is a soft, textured form of genuine leather, and it too has begun to disappear from automotive applications. In its place, automakers are using microfiber suede, a man-made textile marketed under various names including Ultrasuede and Alcantara. These materials include recycled plastics in their manufacture but are not made entirely of recycled materials.

Car Talk has tested vegan leather interior products in vehicles from brands like Tesla, Kia, Toyota, and Lexus. Many of the modern non-leather interiors are quite well executed. Others are not as good and feel like plastic. Vegan leather seats can be heated and perforated for cooling and ventilation. Like any car, the manufacturer decides what level of premium feel to incorporate given the vehicle’s price point, mission, and target audience. Of all the materials we experience in our testing, microfiber suede is among those that we feel offer a “richness” and premium appearance and feel. Cars such as the Toyota Camry now feature microfiber suede. It is typically used as a trim around other materials. We’ve never sat on a seat made entirely from it. Even steering wheels and shifter knobs can be covered in microfiber suede.

What Other Names Are Applied To “Vegan Leather?”

Some manufacturers, like Kia, call their plastic interiors Vegan Leather. Others, like Toyota and Lexus, use brand names such as SofTex and NuLuxe. In our research, we noted that most automakers make encouraging environmental claims about their new generation surfacing materials, but the claims are often of the tone of “Reduces horrible things by up to 55%.” Solvents, plasticizers, volatile organic compounds, and fossil-fuel-based ingredients are hard to avoid in making large-scale surface materials that can last thirty years or more baking in the sun inside a car’s interior.

The Verdict On Vegan Leather and Synthetic Suede

One fact often overlooked in the debate between genuine leather and synthetic interior materials is that real leather isn’t just one product. Some of the cars we have tested have real leather interiors that are not perforated, not soft to the touch, and feel a lot like cheap plastic. Many of the newer-generation synthetic materials we have experienced are fantastic, and Alcantara and Ultrasuede top the list.

There is no perfect material for all uses at all price points. Some genuine leather is great, some are lousy. Some synthetic materials are great, some are lousy. This is why manufacturers like those we named above are branding their synthetic materials. They know they have a good product, and want it to be differentiated from the lower-quality stuff other carmakers are using.

The elephant in the room is that textiles, and we don’t mean wool, used for car seats and trim are considered by many to be the best pick - period. Cloth interiors are cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter, and sidestep the entire real vs. plastic leather debate. While many folks might perceive genuine leather as an upscale product, we wonder just how much of that impression evolved from automakers who marketed cowhide as a step up from cloth.