Jon Kimpel, Executive Director, New Mobility Solution Engineering of Bridgestone, explains how they are designing tires for a world where vehicles last a million miles. The tires of the future won’t use air, will use much less rubber, and will be recyclable. This promises to create a much more sustainable and environmentally-friendly way for the rubber to hit the road.
In addition to reducing maintenance, the elimination of air creates a more durable tire that improves treadwear. This will translate into tires that more closely match the longer life cycles expected with electric vehicles. Additionally, as Kimpel points out, having tires that don’t go flat will be important with the advent of attendant-free, driverless shuttles. From an environmental standpoint, retreading a tire uses less oil and rubber than manufacturing new tires, according to Kimpel.¹
Kimpel explains that the web design is an inherent shock absorber, providing a smooth ride, relative to solid tires. And those smooth rides won’t be limited to electric vehicles, as Bridgestone displayed a bicycle with airless tires at their CES2020 booth. Unfortunately, Kimpel’s prediction about those tires and bikes plying the roads and pathways of the 2020 Olympics is now a dream deferred.
¹Sustainability will be increasingly important as the relative environmental impact from tires increases, as evidenced by the California Air Resources Board’s ongoing study to quantify the impact of tire dust. While CARB is studying, the Tyre Collective, a group of students from the Imperial College and the Royal College of Art, is developing a way to capture tire dust before it falls to the road.
[Added 01/18/23 – Emissions Analytics’ study suggests that the particulates from tires could be as much as 1,850 times greater than a modern gasoline-powered vehicle. Lighter batteries, less aggressive driving and the generous use of regenerative braking will reduce the difference. Emissions Analytics is continuing to study the toxicity of tire particulates. Stay tuned for their study on tire particulate toxicity. From their website – “Emissions Analytics is the leading independent global testing and data specialist for the scientific measurement of real-world emissions and fuel efficiency for passenger and commercial vehicles and non-road mobile machinery.”]
[Added 12/30/20 – The OECD issued a report on the increasing role that Particulate Matter (PM) from tire and road wear due to the weight of electric vehicles. Tree Hugger does a good job summarizing the report. The final section of the report discusses various potential ways to mitigate PM, including street sweeping, filtering (such as what the tire collective is proposing), reducing vehicle miles traveled, new tire materials, and creating lighter-weight vehicles. It also recommends that policy-makers add weight and location of travel as parameters when assessing the external costs of electric vehicles.
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