Goodyear is displaying off a brand new tire made with 90% sustainable supplies, like soybean oil and rice husks. Plans are for a 70% sustainable materials tire to go on sale later this 12 months.
Automakers preserve discovering methods to cut back car emissions, engaged on plans to make use of extra recycled and renewable supplies of their automobiles. However some widespread automotive components are nonetheless stuffed with poisonous and tough-to-recycle supplies. Tires are one of the vital tough-to-recycle supplies.
They’re additionally a put on merchandise that wants changing each few years, and there are at the very least 4 of them on each automotive, truck, and SUV. There’s numerous room to make a distinction the place the rubber meets the street.
Modern Supplies Sourcing Saves Emissions
To assist hit its sustainability targets, Goodyear has needed to suppose exterior the circle on the subject of sourcing uncooked supplies. The 90% tire has 17 featured substances and 12 totally different parts — all of that are being sourced in new ways in which ought to be higher for the planet.
Carbon black reinforces the tire compound and will increase tire life. It’s an necessary ingredient in each tire, they usually get it by burning oil. This extra sustainable tire makes use of 4 varieties of carbon black, generated from methane, CO2, plant-based oils, and oil created from recycled tires. Goodyear says the brand new substances ship the required efficiency and scale back carbon emissions.
Soybean oil replaces a lot of the petroleum-based oil beforehand used to maintain the tire pliable when temperatures change. Goodyear says that whereas almost all soy protein is used for meals and animal feed, there may be “a major surplus of oil left over for industrial use. It’s additionally grown from a plant, not pulled from the bottom.”
Different materials highlights embody silica that comes from rice husk waste. As an alternative of mining for silica, it now comes from a product that will have ended up in a landfill.
Polyester for reinforcement comes from recycled bottles, and pine tree resins are changing petroleum-based resins.
Sustainable Rubber: An Essential Half
In fact, a lot of a tire comes from pure rubber, which is already a sustainable and renewable useful resource. Or at the very least it may be. The tire trade makes use of 70% of the world’s pure rubber, says Goodyear.
The corporate says it’s in alignment with the World Platform for Sustainable Pure Rubber‘s sustainability practices. That helps make sure the rubber used is as sustainable and ethically sourced as doable.
Whereas many idea tires by no means transcend the idea stage, this isn’t a moonshot concept. Goodyear says its 90% sustainable idea tire has handed all regulatory testing. It has additionally handed the corporate’s inner assessments, and Goodyear discovered it to have decrease rolling resistance than a typical tire. Meaning much more potential CO2 reductions and elevated vary for EVs.
Goodyear 70% Sustainable Tires On Sale This 12 months
Goodyear is setting some speedy targets for the manufacturing of extra sustainable tires. The 70% sustainable materials tire it introduced final 12 months is predicted to enter manufacturing this 12 months. The corporate even has a website arrange for anybody fascinated about shopping for its sustainable tires after they’re prepared.
The 90% tire will take extra work. Goodyear says it’s going to want “additional collaboration with the corporate’s provide base.” The problem isn’t discovering the merchandise however sourcing them within the volumes wanted for mass manufacturing.
The general objective is to make a 100% sustainable tire, and the corporate says it needs to try this by 2030.
“The previous 12 months was a pivotal one towards reaching this (2030) objective,” stated Goodyear Tires CTO Chris Helsel. “We researched new applied sciences, recognized alternatives for additional collaboration and utilized our crew’s tenacity to not solely reveal our capabilities to provide a 90% sustainable-material tire however to additionally produce a tire with as much as 70% sustainable-material content material this 12 months.”
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