• Goodyear introduces a tire made of 90-percent sustainable materials, currently in development.
• The company is about to launch a tire made from 70-percent sustainable materials.
• Soybean oil and polyester from recycled plastic bottles are among the materials used.
While electric vehicles make a significant contribution to reducing emissions, it’s worth keeping mind that the components and materials that go into them can also be more – or less - green.
This is particularly true of tires, which use large amounts of rubber. Tires can be a major source of pollution when not properly disposed of. Goodyear has been working on solutions for some time. The company has just presented a new tire it has in development, one made of 90-percent sustainable materials.
Recall that Goodyear had similarly presented a tire in development last year, consisting of 70-percent sustainable materials. That product is about to launch commercially.
To reach its ultimate goal of producing 100-percent sustainable tires on a commercial scale, the company says it will need more collaboration with its supply base to identify what future innovative materials need to be made of to produce the desired tire at high volumes.
With its new, greener tires, Goodyear has also been able to reduce rolling resistance, which can reduce the fuel consumption of a gas-powered vehicle and increase the range of an EV. Reducing the fuel consumption of a vehicle equipped with low-rolling-resistance tires also contributes to reducing its carbon footprint.
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To achieve the 90-percent sustainability threshold, Goodyear uses several materials that are natural or can be recycled from a commonly used manufacturing material.
Soybean oil, for example, keeps the rubber flexible when temperatures change. Goodyear said that 100 percent of soy protein is used for animal feed, but soy oil is an important by-product that can be used for industrial applications.
Goodyear also sources polyester from recycled bottles for tire cord, bio-based and renewable pine resins to improve grip, and steel produced using a low-emission electric arc furnace process. The company now uses soybean oil in its products, including in some race tires. It also said it has doubled its use of sustainable rice husk residue silica since 2018.
It's unclear when we'll be able to drive on tires made from 90-percent sustainable materials, but we can imagine a three- to five-year horizon, as the company has previously said it wants to reach 100 percent sustainability by 2030.