Tires are perhaps not the most obvious place to look for signs of innovation, yet there is a surprising amount of interesting work being done, not least by market leader Goodyear. I wrote a few years ago about their work to provide tires for autonomous vehicles.
The project, called the Eagle 360, is a tire that has been designed to move in every direction. The second tire, called IntelliGrip, is designed to be more akin to the technology mentioned above in that it communicates with the car and provides a steady stream of information on things such as the road conditions.
“It’s a concept tyre with autonomous driving in mind, and we know that what matters most to drivers or passengers is autonomous vehicles is safety,” Goodyear said. “We believe that the tyres are in a critical position, and would provide very important information that cannot be gathered by [a] different manner because they are in direct contact with the road.”
Greener motoring
The company has continued to innovate, with the launch of a new tire, called Oxygene, at the Geneva International Motor Show. The tire has an open structure with living moss growing within the sidewall of the tire. This allows the tire to absorb moisture from the tread and circulate it internally to allow the moss to grow, which in turn absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, before then using photosynthesis to return oxygen.
The company believe that the technology could absorb over 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide if the tires were in use on every car in a large city the size of Paris.
The tires themselves are 3D-printed with rubber powder that itself is made from recycled tires. Not only does the moss help to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it also generates energy that is used to power various electronics in the tire, including onboard sensors, an AI processing unit and lights that indicate upcoming lane changes.
It’s an interesting example of the way the sector is innovating, and I encourage you to watch the video below to learn more about the tire.
