Goodyear's Cornstarch Tires Better for the Environment

How do you make a tire green? Goodyear is trying to answer this question by developing a new line of low-rolling-resistance tires made of renewable and sustainable materials.

A typical tire has soot and silicon in its makeup, both of which are petroleum products. Goodyear wants to replace these materials with cornstarch as a way to lower the overall CO2 impact of each tire it makes. Adding a biological component isn't the only benefit — the tires will also raise overall fuel efficiency for the car that sits on them.

Joining Goodyear is Italian research and development company Novamont, as well as BMW. While environmentally friendly cornstarch tires certainly sound appealing, they still need to live up to the same safety and reliability standards as their soot-and-silicon predecessors.

Goodyear Announces New "Green Filling" for Tires — It's Made from Cornstarch (AutoblogGreen)

Comments

Another way to save the tires that we already made is to recycle them into clothing. it is becoming quite popular to see designer handbags, shoes and belts made out of recycled tires.

z

Lower rolling resistance is also lower stopping resistance, but I'm guessing the cornstarch has nothing to do with either.

What does that mean Spanky?

Are you trying to imply that the tread material coefficient of friction is somehow related the carcass construction, or the internal losses of the tread block?

Michelin has disproved the FUD [fear, uncertainty, doubt] with their new tire line for a French manufacturer.
Higher traction & lower rolling resistance. (and longer tread life)
Isn't science grand?

Its great that many people are still concerned with the environment. I mean, we ourselves are slowly killing our nature, so I guess using things like this cornstarch tires are ok.