Goodyear and Gatik recently deployed road-friction detection capabilities in Canada through continuous measurement of tyre sensor-derived information, which is paired with other vehicle data and connected to Goodyear's cloud-based proprietary algorithms to optimize vehicle performance. Friction estimates from Goodyear’s SightLine solution were successfully able to detect low grip conditions, such as snowy or icy conditions, and make this information available to Gatik’s autonomous fleet, enhancing safety and performance for Gatik’s commercial operations in Canada’s challenging winter climate.

With road-friction data, tyres can help enable smoother, safer and more sustainable driving. This is critical information for autonomous vehicles in terms of path planning and providing recommendations for safe driving speed, vehicle acceleration limits and vehicle following distance.

Goodyear SightLine technology is designed to measure the tyre wear state, load, inflation pressure and temperature. It combines that with real-time road-weather data and proprietary rubber friction models to estimate the tyre-road friction potential. Having this information in real-time enables Gatik’s fleet to safely and efficiently respond to challenging conditions within its operational design domain (ODD). While Goodyear’s SightLine technology has tremendous future implications for autonomous driving, this year it is anticipated that Goodyear will also be deploying Goodyear SightLine technology on select original equipment vehicles bringing immediate utility to today’s mobility market.

"The tyre is the only part of the vehicle that touches the ground, and this new level of data sophistication can communicate vital information to the vehicle, enhancing safety and performance," said Chris Helsel, Goodyear's Senior Vice President, Global Operations and Chief Technology Officer. "This is another step to evolve the tyre to not only deliver its core, traditional job but also be a nexus of new data and information."

“At Gatik, we’re dedicated to providing our customers with a solution that continues to raise industry standards in safety, efficiency and performance,” said Arjun Narang, Gatik’s Chief Technology Officer and co-founder. “Using Goodyear’s groundbreaking SightLine technology helps us to operationalize these principles and ensures that we’re delivering greater value and enhancing safety on the middle mile today.”

This demonstration tyre also tested to have lower rolling resistance when compared to the reference tyre, made with traditional materials. Lower rolling resistance means this demonstration tyre has the potential to offer better fuel savings and carbon footprint reduction. 

In addition, after announcing the capability to demonstrate a 70% sustainable-material tyre in January 2022, Goodyear, working with its supply base, plans to sell a tyre with up to 70% sustainable-material content in 2023. Consumers interested in purchasing this tyre can register for updates at Goodyear.com/SustainableMaterialTire.   

Bringing a 90% sustainable-material tyre to market will require further collaboration with the company’s supply base to identify the scale necessary for these innovative materials to produce that specific tyre at high volumes. 

“We continue to make progress toward our goal of introducing the first 100% sustainable-material tyre 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 utilised our team’s tenacity to not only demonstrate our capabilities to produce a 90% sustainable-material tyre, but to also produce a tyre with up to 70% sustainable-material content this year. Our team continues to showcase its innovation and commitment to building a better future.” 

90% Sustainable-material Demonstration Tyre - 17 Ingredients Across 12 Different Tyre Components 
 

This 90% sustainable-material demonstration tyre includes 17 featured ingredients across 12 different components, including: 

• Carbon black, which is included in tires for compound reinforcement and to help increase their life, has traditionally been made by burning various types of petroleum products. Goodyear’s 90% sustainable-material demonstration tyre features four different types of carbon black that are produced from methane, carbon dioxide, plant-based oil and end-of-life tyre pyrolysis oil feedstocks. These carbon black technologies target reduced carbon emissions, circularity and the use of bio-based carbons, while still delivering on performance.  
   
• The use of soybean oil in this demonstration tyre helps keep the tyre’s rubber compound pliable in changing temperatures. Soybean oil is a bio-based resource that helps to reduce Goodyear’s use of petroleum-based products. While nearly 100% of soy protein is used in food/animal feed applications, a significant surplus of oil is left over and available for use in industrial applications. 
   
• Silica is an ingredient often used in tyres to help improve grip and reduce fuel consumption. This demonstration tyre includes a high-quality silica produced from rice husk waste residue (RHA silica), a byproduct of rice processing that is often discarded and put into landfills.  
   
• Polyester is recycled from post-consumer bottles by reverting the polyester into base chemicals and reforming them into technical grade polyester used in tyre cords. 
   
• Resins are used to help improve and enhance tyre traction performance. In this demonstration tyre, traditional petroleum-based resins are replaced with bio-renewable pine tree resins.  
   
• Bead wire and steel cords provide reinforcement in the structure of a radial tyre. This demonstration tyre uses bead wire and steel cord from steel with high-recycled content, which is produced using the electric arc furnace (EAF) process. The utilisation of the EAF process allows for steel to be produced with reduced energy use and higher recycled content. The EAF process has the potential for lower greenhouse gas emissions in comparison with steel produced using a blast furnace.  
   
• ISCC certified mass balance polymers from bio- and bio-circular feedstock are also included in this tyre. 

The shift to sustainable materials is evident in some of Goodyear’s current product lines. Today, eight product lines, and some racing tyres, include soybean oil. In addition, Goodyear has more than doubled its use of RHA silica in its product lines since 2018. With the introduction of a tire with up to 70% sustainable-material content, Goodyear is demonstrating tangible commitment with in-market solutions to building a better future.                                                                                                     

*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.  
**The 90% sustainable-material tyre has been developed as a demonstration tyre, which means Goodyear has proven its ability to produce a consumer tyre with a high-level of sustainable-material content.