Tyre Of The Future

We travel to Goodyear HQ in Luxembourg to see the radical rubber innovations on the way for the cars of tomorrow.

- Joe Finnerty

A BEAT-UP old diesel hatchback and a gleaming, showroom-fresh hybrid supercar. These two vehicles are worlds apart in performance, quality and price, yet they have one thing in common: tyres.

These four rubber rings represent your only, palm-sized contact with the surface upon which you’re driving, and no matter how good your car, if your tyres aren’t up to scratch, you’re running the risk of having a serious accident. Low pressures, barely legal tread depths and cheap rubber are all issues faced by motorists, although the addition of tyre pressure-monitoring systems (TPMS), which were made mandatory from 2012, has helped to improve safety.

However, that still hasn’t cured all tyre problems completely, and rubber defects rank as one of the biggest reasons for MoT failure in the UK. Despite the lack of attention afforded by drivers, tyre companies are ploughing millions into research and development to make them perform to their peak. So what has this achieved, and what will the future hold? With every part of a car becoming more connected, why not tyres, too? Perhaps we really could see someone reinvent the wheel.

To find out about the tyre revolution, Auto Express headed to Goodyear’s headquarters in Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg. It’s more than just a factory; it’s more like Goodyear city, with 3,000 employees representing more than 50 nationalities – that’s 15 per cent of the company’s global workforce, with the rest based in the USA, Germany and, since 2015, China.