This Is the Future of Tire Technology: What Will EVs and AVs Roll On?

The humble pneumatic tire dates back to the 19th century, first deployed in 1888 by a gentleman named John Boyd Dunlop.Believe it or not, 135 years later scientists are still mastering the black magic of tire dynamics, resulting in new shapes, treads, compounds, and constructions.

"SKU proliferation in the tire industry has exploded," Steve Bourassa told us. He's director of products at Nokian Tyres North America."Rough estimate here: 20 years ago, we were probably looking at 160, 175 sizes that made up the market. Now we're over 600 sizes total that consumers can potentially choose from to put on their vehicle."

While the durability advantage of an airless tire is clear, there are some drawbacks to NPTs, particularly when it comes to EV applications."Especially early on, the weight and the rolling resistance of them compared to a pneumatic tire, it's just not comparable," Bridgestone's director of consumer product strategy Will Robbins told us.

"You get all the stuff that helps make the tire quiet," Robbins said,"but also, when you put your foot down in something like a Mach-E GT, the tire locks together, and you still have a great amount of stiffness in the pattern." Most manufacturers are making major pledges, like Nokian building the industry's first carbon-neutral tire manufacturing plant in Romania, scheduled to open next year. Michelin, meanwhile, is aiming for full carbon neutrality in all its manufacturing by 2050.But even if you can reuse the majority of the tire, the tread that wears off has to go somewhere."Clearly, there's a significant amount of rubber that has essentially gone into the environment.

Bridgestone's new mixing techniques have already doubled the amount of silica-to-polymer bonding, but there's much more to come in this area of research."What this new mixing technology allows us to do is continue to use more silica, then we need new polymers that are designed to take advantage of it," Robbins said."Over the next decade, that's really where the continued research is going to be.

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Aston Martin’s new ‘super tourer’ has noise-canceling tire techDan Carney has been an automotive contributor to Popular Science since 1998. Along the way he’s charted the evolution of electric vehicle technology from costly, impractical science projects to vehicles that are now on the brink of mainstream market acceptance. He’s also seen the rise of driver assistance technology and its potential eventual development into autonomous vehicles. He lives in Virginia with his wife; the kids are mostly out of the house.
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