There’s still a lot of petroleum hanging onto electric cars, specifically around the rims. It takes about seven gallons (26.5 L) of oil to make each standard car tire, and the world produces more than 2 billion tires every year. Now, some tire companies are turning to a desert shrub and a novel means of pulling natural rubber compounds out of it.
It helps that the rubber that comes from guayule is not some weaker, paper-straw alternative—it generally makes a better tire, especially in heavy-load applications like large trucks, airplanes, and race tires. Bridgestone’s Firestone brand debuted sustainable tires at a pre-Indy 500 pit stop challenge, and they were an alternate offering at a Nashville street race in August. Bridgestone tested its guayule-derived tires for over a year on Indy cars and found it provided “similar or better performance” than traditional race tires.
#environment #tires #tyres #rubber #guayule