After a decade of analysis, Bridgestone is beginning to create tires with a brand new, extra sustainable supply: a desert shrub referred to as guayule.
Native to northern Mexico and southwestern U.S., guayule is a heat-tolerant supply of pure rubber that can be utilized to make tires, in keeping with Bridgestone. Pure rubber might be extracted from guayule’s branches, bark, and roots, and it may be farmed with present crop-row gear, in keeping with the corporate.
Harvesting guayule crops to be used in Bridgestone tires
Cultivating guayule helps diversify the world’s pure rubber provide, and permits Bridgestone to supply extra of the fabric regionally for the U.S. market. The corporate hopes to commercialize guayule rubber in tires by 2030, however has already undertaken some proof-of-concept steps.
In 2012 Bridgestone broke floor on a guayule processing and analysis middle in Mesa, Arizona. The power now sends rubber from crops grown at a Bridgestone-operated farm in Elroy, Arizona, to a facility in Akron, Ohio, the place it is made into tires. Racing tires, that’s.
Firestone Firehawk IndyCar race tires made with guayule rubber
Firestone Firehawk tires from the Bridgestone-owned Firestone model containing guayule rubber debuted on the Indianapolis 500 in Might, and have been used for the primary time in racing circumstances on the IndyCar Music Metropolis Grand Prix in Nashville earlier in August. Guayule rubber was used within the sidewalls of the alternate tire for that race. These are higher-grip, however faster-wearing tires groups have the choice to make use of on avenue and highway programs alongside main and rain tires.
Bridgestone is different doable makes use of for guayule rubber in each racing and passenger-car tires in 2023 as the corporate appears to commercialize the fabric. Bridgestone spokesman Davis Adams instructed Motor Authority the corporate is not able to announce what sort of tire it is going to choose for that first industrial utility, noting Bridgestone’s catalog extends properly past automotive tires. The corporate makes tires for all the things from enormous mining vans to airplanes.