One of the benefits of these sustainable tires is their lower rolling resistance, which improves fuel economy and reduces a vehicle's carbon footprint. The tires have also been designed to reduce fuel consumption, making them ideal for electric vehicles where the tire choice can have a significant impact on the vehicle's range.
Goodyear is using materials like soybean oil, polyester from recycled bottles, bio-renewable pine tree resins, and steel produced using a low-greenhouse-gas-emissions electric arc furnace process. The company has also doubled its use of sustainable rice husk waste residue silica since 2018.
While the 90% sustainable tires are still a few years away from hitting the road, Goodyear is already setting ambitious goals for the future, with plans to build a 100% sustainable tire by 2030, which would make them the first company to achieve such a feat.
“We continue to make progress toward our goal of introducing the first 100% sustainable-material tire in the industry by 2030,” said Chris Helsel, senior vice president, Global Operations and Chief Technology Officer. “The past year was a pivotal one toward achieving this goal. We researched new technologies, identified opportunities for further collaboration and utilized our team’s tenacity to not only demonstrate our capabilities to produce a 90% sustainable-material tire, but to also produce a tire with up to 70% sustainable-material content this year. Our team continues to showcase its innovation and commitment to building a better future.”
What is a sustainable material?
A sustainable material is defined as a bio-based/renewable, recycled material or one that may be produced using or contributing to other sustainable practices for resource conservation and/or emissions reductions including mass-balance materials.
Source: Goodyear
