By Brianne Hogan / Source: Ecorazzi

After some pressure by PETA, Tesla’s new Model X SUV comes with a fully vegan interior — including synthetic leather seats, steering wheel and gear shift.

The animal rights group, which is a Tesla shareholder, spoke at Tesla’s 2015 annual meeting, urging the company to offer only vegan leather for its car interiors. At the time, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk had said he would “absolutely” consider it.

Well, the electric company did more than consider it. Last week, Musk rolled out the all-vegan “Ultra White” interior option, currently only offered in the new Model X SUV.

However, this isn’t Tesla’s first vegan car. The company has offered cloth interiors for customers who don’t want leather, and last year it created an animal-free Tesla S for shareholders Mark and Elizabeth Peters who requested a “cruelty-free” vehicle from the car maker.

The “Ultra White” was created, in part, to PETA pointing out that the company could reduce its carbon footprint by using only vegan leather — which makes sense. For a car maker that is concerned with limiting emissions, why would it include animal products? Producing leather requires 15,000 gallons of water per ton of hides as well as toxic chemicals, while livestock accounts for about 14.5 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans.

For now, Tesla is keeping both its leather and vegan options but we would like to see the electric car company forgo all leather in the near future.

Read more @ Ecorazzi