Bridgestone's Air Free Tyre - Why the silent Switch to Airless Tyre indicates that we'll run out of Rubber by 2030

All-Electric Vehicle Sales are still growing at a rapid pace of 33% per annum according to the stats of Vehicle Sales analyst InsideEVS as detailed in my blog article entitled “InsideEVS stats says All-Electric Vehicles Growing Strong - 500,000 by 2020 is a potential Robotic Self-Driving Army”.

Growth may be spurred by the idea that these vehicles would help many consolidate their Utility bills into just electricity alone. Well, what if you could also eliminate the flat Tyre and make tyres recyclable?

That's the promise of never having to touch another Car Tyre again was being touted by Bridgestone's Air Free Tyre which they showed off at the Paris Motor Show in October 2013 as declared in the article “Out with the air: Bridgestone shows off tires you never have to inflate”, published October 3, 2014 10:17 AM PDT by Stephen Shankland, CNET News.

Originally introduced back in 2011, this is their second generation prototype that's improved on previous design with improved heat dissipation capabilities that enable it to better absorb shocks while driving.

So how does the Bridgestone's Air Free Tyre achieve this?

Bridgestone's Air Free Tyre – Steam Turbine design improves on the air-inflated donut Tyre

It replaces the conventional Tyre with a design that looks like a Tyre in terms of being donut shaped.

It makes it departure from that trusted designed by simply not having to be inflated with air, which in the Bridgestone Air Free Tyre is replaced by an arrangement of shock-absorbing material in a pattering resembling the fans inside of a Steam Turbine Generator.

These vanes radiate from the center, likes spokes from a bicycle that finally terminate on a thick band of replaceable Rubber. When the Rubber part of the Tyre wears out, a new Rubber band can be heated and slipped on in much the same way you slip on a pair of slippers.

While Bridgestone Air Slippers might be a bit too girly, it does have some manly advantages, such as the fact that the tyres have a profile akin to an F1Racing Car Tyre. Still it has at least four to five (4-5) years of development before even a price or a working prototype can be tested on real-world vehicles.

Albeit it cannot be puncture as it has no air, it still has the problem of lateral stiffness, making it hard to do donuts, wheelies or very hard turns with these tyres. Which is just as well, as the initial test run of the Bridgestone's Air Free Tyre will be on All-Electric Vehicles in Tokyo, Japan says Manager of Bridgestone's technical department for France Benelux. Olivier Monbet.

But making your car tyres look like F1 Racing treads isn't the main reason why Bridgestone is still pushing ahead with research on airless tyres after some five (5) years of testing. It really has to do with recyclability.

If they're worried about recyclability of Rubber, it hints at something else more sinister; we may be running out of Rubber from as far back as 2010 as noted in the “Bridgestone,Goodyear Face Deepening Rubber Shortage”, published Sep 21, 2010 5:45 AM ET By Aya Takada and Supunnabul Suwannakij, Bloomberg.

Bridgestone's Air Free Tyre – Why minimalistic Design for Recycling says we’re running out of Rubber

Bridgestone has some eight (8) Tyre manufacturing plants all around the world.

So with so many factories, they'd be in a position to notice any strange changes in the Rubber market. They’d naturally have an interest to make sure that making tyres was a sustainable activity if they suddenly noticed that the demand for tyres was pushing up the price of Rubber as noted in the article “Tyre makers wary of Rubber shortage”, published March 13, 2014, Global Rubber Markets.

This shortfall in supply of Rubber would be an early sign that the Pará rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis) that produce Rubber, mainly found in South America with the largest producers being Thailand and Indonesia are not producing enough Rubber to keep up with Global Tyre Demand. More land space being cleared may be resulting in the destruction of large tracts of land with Pará rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis) for food cultivation. 

Coincidentally, these are countries that are experiencing a prolonged drought cause by Climate Change coupled with increasing demand from Developing and Developed countries that’ll result in a global shortage in Chocolate by 2020 as predicted in my blog article entitled  “Chocolate Shortage in 2020 – Chinese, Indian and American addiction Inflates Price of Cocoa as Jamaica needs to produce Chocolate”.

According to the UNFAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization), more land will be needed to feed the world population which is expected to balloon to 9 billion people by 2030, putting insects and other sources of protein on the menu as prophesied in my blog article entitled “United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says Insects is the Meat for the next 20 years - Soylent Green may be avoided via Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”.

Growing demand for Tyres not sustainable – Tyre Manufacturers silently switching from Rubber

This demand for Rubber to make new tyres is growing as more people learn to drive and desire to have their own set of wheels, be the Combustion Engine Otto Cycle vehicles or the All-Electric Vehicle Craze now sweeping the First and Developed World Countries according to the stats of Vehicle Sales analyst InsideEVS as detailed in my blog article entitled “InsideEVS stats says All-Electric Vehicles Growing Strong - 500,000 by 2020 is a potential Robotic Self-Driving Army”.

Recycling of Car tyres in the US of A seems to mainly involve turning the Tyre into Diesel and Gasoline and extracting Carbon as pointed out in my blog article entitled “St. Lucia’s SLSWMA to make Fuel from Tyres - Why is Jamaica not converting Tyres at Riverton City Dump into Fuel”. A Tyre that can’t be pyrolyzed into fuel would be very attractive, as once it’s worn down, it could be returned to be refitted with a Rubber band wheel, which would reduce the cost of tyres for the consumer in the long run during the life of the car.

Making the Tyre from alternative materials other than Naturally-occurring Rubber would not only make their business sustainable, but would also reduce Bridgestone's impact on the Environment by making it unnecessary to cut down huge tracts of land to grow Pará rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis) just to make Car tyres and other Rubber products.

Plus, by making a recyclable Air Free Tyre, it creates the possibility that Tyre’s age can be more precisely controlled being as they have just a thick wrap of Rubber on the Tyre. This makes it possible that one day tyres can be designed to alert the driver when they need changing and thus create more sales of tyres.

Competition to Bridgestone’s Air Free Tyre – Michelin and Hankook also sense Rubber Shortage

This realization hasn’t been lost on Bridgestone's competition; already Michelin has a Tyre called the Michelin Tweel designed for Loaders and Reefers on the wharves and Hankook has the Hankook i-Flex that's made specifically for passenger vehicles as reported in the in the article “Hankook's i-Flex 'twheels' bid farewell to flat tires”, published September 13, 2013 2:20 PM PDT by Christopher MacManus, CNET News.

With these big names in Tyre manufacturing suddenly taking an interest in making airless tyres, it clear that this isn't some fanciful consumer trend.

It may really be because of a declining supply in Rubber from Africa and South American due to either Drought of the land being used for something else forcing India, the third largest consumer of Rubber, to import more Rubber as stated in the article “Rubber Imports by India Jumping 38% to Record as Shortage Widens”, published Feb 20, 2014 12:32 AM ET By Swansy Afonso, Bloomberg News.

So is this trend towards Airless Tyres really about convenience driven by a shift towards maintenance free All-Electric Vehicles? Or is it masking a bigger problem, which is of course, is the Tyre Industry’s fear that Global Warming and a need to feed our rapidly growing global population set to hit 9 billion by 2030 means that land for Pará rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis) will be sacrificed for Food Cultivation?

I’ll be doing a follow-up when more information becomes available on this growing trend.