Tyres stuffed with corn starch, quarter windows made from plastic and life-of-engine air filters spells out good news for eco-warriors, reports Matthew Beecham in his regular ‘tech review’ column.
Eco-friendly tyres hit the road this summer
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
To most folk, tyres are round, black and boring. We rarely give them a second thought. But to the scientists at the world’s largest tyremaker, Goodyear, a tyre is a highly sophisticated product of advanced material engineering. To them, tyre design and development is a compromise between various properties. Depending on the application, a set of tyres must provide good ride comfort, suppress noise, improve durability, offer rolling resistance and, above all, grip the road in all weather conditions. But increasingly, environmental factors have played a big part in their development.
 |
| The world’s first tyre using extracts of corn goes on sale in the UK this summer |
The maize-starch derivative used in the tyre is extracted from corn through a process similar to that used in the food industry. It is then transformed into micro-droplets which undergo a special treatment to turn them into a biopolymeric filler. Thus the filler replaces a part of the silica and black.
Goodyear claim that a car equipped with GT3 tyres results in a reduction in rolling resistance of about 20%. It’s lighter, too. Combined, these features lead to a 5% decrease in fuel consumption. Over 40,000 km, the driver of a car equipped with GT3 tyres will have saved the equivalent of two new tyres. Goodyear claims that the application of maize in the tyre’s construction results in a decrease of CO² emissions by 7.7g/km, compared to its predecessor GT2. The reduction of CO² emission is a combination of 0.2g/km saved in the production process of the filler and 7.5g/km as a result of lower rolling resistance. It can also mean a reduction in noise levels of some 30%. It’s also reckoned to be safer. A GT3 tyre features Goodyear’s 3D-BIS (3 Dimensional Block Interlocking System) resulting in better grip on wet and dry road surfaces.
In developing such an eco-friendly replacement for traditional compound reinforcements, all credit to Goodyear for another round, black and a-maiz-ing product.
Fit ’em and forget ’em air filters
Here’s another idea to cut the cost of motoring. Visteon has come up with a new air filter designed to last the life of an engine. It contains a special reticulated foam filter that traps over 300 grams of dust, salt, and moisture. During road tests, some taxicabs running around four US states clocked up 300,000 miles without requiring filter replacement. In service costs, it can save the driver around $150 over the life of the vehicle.
 |
| Visteon’s long life filtration system |
Weight watching: a pane in the glass
One of the biggest challengers facing glassmakers is how to suppress cost and weight but help carmakers differentiate their models from the rest. Although introducing complex and intricate glazing designs certainly makes a new car stand out from the rest, it also results in a slow and expensive manufacturing process. Glass surface area is increasing, too. Not just side windows but sprawling across the roof, too. Audi and Mercedes have both introduced wide-aperture sunroofs that offer larger openings and entire roof panels of glass to create a light and airy cabin environment. Industry estimates suggest that the quantity of glass in each vehicle is steadily rising-by around 15% in the last ten years. A mid-range saloon, for example, carries around 100lb of glass today, compared to around 85lb in 1990.
While thinner glass can adversely affect sound insulation, thick glass impacts on carmakers’ aims to improve fuel economy and meet emissions targets. Shaving off a millimetre of glass from each sidelight could save 3 – 4lb in vehicle weight. Another way to shed weight is to use polycarbonate. Sounds like an obvious innovation, but it’s not new. For over thirty years, auto glass experts have explored the potential for plastic as a replacement to glass. The main problem is still rigidity. Glass forms an important part of the vehicle’s structure. Plastic windows with the same 3mm thickness as glass would not offer that rigidity. Plastic is also quite soft, so scratches easily. So that rules out windscreen and side window applications, although rules in quarter window. But when you consider that auto glazing accounts for 5% of the total car weight, the carmaker stands to gain little, if any weight benefit from using plastic in preference to glass. So has plastic glazing got a future? According to Roger Thomas, vice president of marketing and business development at Pilkington, carmakers simply won’t pay twice the price to get a minuscule weight saving. He told us: “You get the hype (with plastic) but when you do the economics, it doesn’t pay. But if you can get the design integration right by moulding the part with greater complexity than glass, then you can see why people would adopt it. But I don’t think you’ll see it in volume cars during this decade.”
To view related research reports, please follow the links below:- Global tyre market intelligence set PriceWaterhouseCoopers Global Supplier Report (download) |
