Michelin eyes 2025 for sustainable car, truck tires

CUNEO, Italy — Group Michelin is targeting 2025 as the year it expects to have tires commercialy available that are produced with heretofore high percentages of sustainable materials.

The company recently exhibited a pair of tires — one passenger and one commercial — that it claims contain 45% and 57%, respectively, of sustainable/environmentally friendly materials while offering no performance compromises.

Michelin disclosed the product launches during a media day held Oct. 4 at its Cuneo passenger tire factory.

"Michelin has taken a new step toward the pre-production and marketing within two to three years of new ranges that will include high levels of sustainable materials," the company said.

How do you define the sustainable dimension of an object?
At Michelin, we do not design sustainable tires on paper: we make them for real 👊 . pic.twitter.com/NsJlejyTjg

— Michelin (@Michelin) October 13, 2022

The French tire maker said the tires introduced at the Cuneo event are built with a greater-than-usual percentage of natural rubber, together with the use of of recycled carbon black, oils such as sunflower oil and bio-sourced resins, silica from rice husks and recycled steel.

Michelin did not identify which tire lines these demonstration models represent not say which highly sustainable tire lines it expects to be commercially available first or where they would be sold initially.

The passenger tire shown at the media day event features a sidewall design that evokes the three-dimensional spider-web-type structure of the company's Vision 3D printed prototype first exhibited in 2017.

The company said these models demonstrate that it is on track with its sustainability goal of upgrading global production to 100% bio-sourced, renewable or recycled materials by 2050, with a 40% step in 2030.

To support this drive, Michelin has designated an department within its research and development sector with 6,000 engineers, researchers, chemists and developers. The company also said it holds 3,678 active patents for these materials.

Over recent years, Michelin has stepped up its sustainability-focused efforts with partnerships particularly in the fields of recycling.

Among the partners are Pyrowave Inc. to manufacture recovered styrene monomers (r-styrene), Carbios S.A. for the manufacture of r-PET, and Enviro Systems A.B. for the production of recovered carbon black.

The group is also involved in projects to produce bio-butadiene and to set up recycling plants for tires as well as unrecyclable waste.