In January 2005, Mercedes-Benz informed PETA that all future Mercedes-Benz models will be available with a completely leather-free option, either direct at the dealership or via special order in all markets.

Mercedes’ announcement follows PETA’s consumer-driven campaign to pressure the company to offer alternatives to leather for all models of its cars. The campaign scored a stunning first step victory in 2003 when DaimlerChrysler-India agreed to make a nonleather interior an option in all Mercedes models built and sold in that country. Campaign supporters included actor James Cromwell (whose credits include The Sum of All Fears, The Green Mile, The General’s Daughter, and Babe, for which he received an Academy Award nomination), who had asked DaimlerChrysler, maker of the Mercedes-Benz brand, for a face-to-face meeting at its Stuttgart headquarters.
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Leather in Cars
It takes the skins of about four cows to produce the interior of just one car. Maybach, however, requires seven cowhides, and Rolls-Royce requires 15. Bader, just one of the many leather suppliers that sell skin to car companies, goes through 9,000 skins a day. Ultimately, PETA wants car manufacturers to stop using leather. As a start, we want car companies to offer a nonleather option for each model of their vehicles. We need your help!

Because of the push from those who make money from killing animals, automakers tripled their use of leather from 1982 to 1992, doubled it again in the five years after that and continue to increase their use of leather today.

According to The New York Times, "American tanneries that serve the auto industry buy 20 percent of the 36 million hides produced domestically. At about 45 square feet per cow, that's 58 square miles of skin—enough to upholster Manhattan two and a half times."

Despite these shocking figures, carmakers that use leather try to absolve themselves from responsibility by referring to leather as a "byproduct" of the meat industry. This is just an excuse—and not even a good one—and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service more accurately states that leather is "the highest value coproduct of the meat industry." And, of course, any by-product of the meat industry is a cruel product that contributes to killing.