With the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) now in full swing in Las Vegas, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has taken the opportunity to talk about its work in the field of tyre intelligence technologies. This includes new joint development with specialists such as TDK Corporation and, separately, ZF.
A new collaboration between The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and California-based bioengineering firm Visolis will lead to the production of isoprene through the upcycling of biobased materials. This collaboration, which Goodyear announced yesterday, is supported by a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant awarded to Visolis earlier this year.
Some 18 months after establishing a partnership with Monolith, Goodyear is launching a tyre containing the pyrolysis specialist’s carbon black. Owners of electric vehicles in North America can now fit the Goodyear ElectricDrive GT, a size 235/40R19 all-season tyre. This is the first tyre to feature this type of carbon black produced by Monolith.
In addition to unveiling a demonstration tyre containing 90% sustainable materials, Goodyear announces it will begin selling tyres with up to 70% sustainable-material content during the course of this year. No details are available at present, but Goodyear invites “consumers interested in purchasing this tyre” to register for updates at a US market-focused site.
This week marks the 53rd anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the surface of the Moon, a date of particular significance for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Goodyear supplied a number of essential components for this history-making mission and later developed non-pneumatic tyres for the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle. The tyre maker is once again looking spacewards and is developing tyres for a lunar vehicle that in future may extend commercialism to the Earth’s rocky satellite.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has officially opened its new manufacturing facility in Dudelange, Luxembourg, an operation it calls a “first of its kind” for the company. The inauguration on 5 May follows a US$77 million investment in industry 4.0 digital manufacturing processes at the site.
The USA has classified natural rubber as a strategic raw material that serves as a critical ingredient in military, aircraft and truck tyres. The country currently relies on rubber imports for its tyre production but wishes to reduce this dependency, and government and military are thus working with private partners to accelerate commercialisation of natural rubber from dandelions. Goodyear Tire & Rubber will play a key role in achieving this goal.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has taken a further step towards its aim of achieving material sustainability by producing a tyre with 70 per cent sustainable material content. While this Goodyear Assurance tyre is a demonstration model and won’t be offered for sale just now, innovations contained within will certainly appear in future ranges.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber may soon be utilising carbon black produced from methane and/or biomethane in its tyres thanks to a new partnership with US-based clean materials firm Monolith. The two companies have signed a collaboration agreement and letter of intent covering the development and potential use of such products, which are made through a plasma-based methane pyrolysis process.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has named Ellis Jones its chief sustainability officer and a company vice-president. Jones’ appointment took effect yesterday, and in this role, he reports to Chris Helsel, senior vice president, global operations and chief technology officer.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has entered into a strategic collaboration with Plus (formerly Plus.ai), a global provider of self-driving truck technology, to provide optimised, autonomous trucking solutions. Goodyear brings a range of services to this collaboration, including connected tyres, and the partners will explore how Plus’s autonomous driving system can incorporate feedback from these tyres into Plus’s online, machine learning-based fuel optimisation, to further improve fuel economy.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has introduced a tyre intelligence solution for cargo van fleets. Called Goodyear SightLine, the solution will initially be available in Europe and North America, and later this year Goodyear will also offer it to original equipment customers and emerging fleet and mobility providers.
A broadened remit for Christopher P. Helsel: The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has announced he will succeed Jonathan Bellissimo as senior vice president, global operations following the latter’s retirement after a Goodyear career spanning four decades. Helsel will also continue as chief technology officer, a role he’s held for the past three years.
With the addition of a new DiM250 Dynamic Driving Simulator, the Goodyear Innovation Center in Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg will gain greater tyre testing capabilities. The equipment supplied by VI-grade, a provider of real-time simulation software and driver-in-the-loop simulators, will also enhance technical collaboration between Goodyear Tire & Rubber’s European operation and its headquarters in Akron, USA, where another DiM250 recently entered operation.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber says its road testing and customer field tests involving connected tyres recently surpassed the 3-million-mile mark with initial studies showing these connected tyres can reduce stopping distance lost between a new and worn tyre by 30 per cent.
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