Goodyear focused on fleets for airless tire development

Goodyear's quest to conquer the nonpneumatic tire space isn't so much about slaying any one proverbial dragon.

It's about slaying the most important dragons.

After all, the airless technology that the tire maker already has deployed for testing covers everything from adorable autonomous robots to 7,000-pound autonomous shuttles. And the Akron-based tire maker isn't stopping there. It has plans to expand within all segments, including passenger vehicles and commercial trucking.

So when it comes to Goodyear's plan for gaining a better understanding of airless tire technology and bringing the best possible products to the market, the tire maker isn't targeting vehicle segments.

Goodyear is targeting trends. Five of them to be exact: Fleets, Autonomy, Connectivity, Electrification and Sustainability.

It's a collection of mobility technologies that Goodyear has come to define with the acronym FACES.

And the FACES concept is the hub around which all of Goodyear's product innovation evolves. But it's especially central to the development of airless tires. And when it comes to those tires, Goodyear is first focusing in on fleets.

Big and small.

"We see the concept of 'fleet' showing up in shared mobility—fleets of passenger cars, fleets of microdelivery robots, fleets of different types of transportation, shuttles and things," Michael Rachita, senior program manager on Goodyear's nonpneumatic tires team, told Rubber News.

On the microdelivery fleets front, the tire maker has focused on its partnership with Starship, a startup deploying autonomous robots that can deliver food, goods and packages across college campuses. Since January, those robots have been scooting across Bowling Green University on airless tires designed by Goodyear.

"At first you look at that (robot) and think oh, that's a toy. No it isn't. It's extremely sophisticated nearly Level 5 autonomous technology," Rachita said. "And they were having tremendous trouble in that space with the tires. And so we have solved a real problem with this technology."

Goodyear's airless tires are helping to ensure that those hard-working robots aren't stopped by something as simplistic as a flat. At the same time, because those robots employ such advanced vehicle technology, Goodyear is gaining insight into the future of the auto industry and gathering data that it can use to perfect products for different applications.

And the microdelivery robot tires aren't the first that Goodyear has tested in the field. Last year, the tire maker partnered with Local Motors to deploy in Florida autonomous shuttles fitted with application-specific airless tires.

"It is almost like a bus," Rachita said of the Olli autonomous shuttle. "It moves about 5-10 mph, so the speed rating is very slow, but the load is very high. And that helps us learn and mature in the load-carrying capacity without having to worry about extremely high vehicle dynamics, right? You don't have to turn aggressively left or right in this shuttle that is moving a few miles per hour."

Understanding the load bearing capabilities of the materials and designs of its airless tire technology is what truly allows Goodyear to grow its product offerings both in size and scope.

Does that mean that Goodyear is looking to bring its technology to the commercial trucking space? Sure. Especially for fleet applications.

"Most of the development sector that we are looking at is delivery. It is logistics and moving of cargo and passengers," Rachita said. "And, again, because we are connecting it back to FACES, we are looking at, in that space, where are those fleets? Where are those customers that have a pain point? … So, yes, even as big as an 18-wheel truck would be in scope, but the ability to move it into a category is based on technology maturity."

Rachita is quick to note that Goodyear also is exploring nonpneumatic tire development in the passenger vehicle space. After all, he said, the maintenance-free attributes of nonpneumatic tires are the biggest selling point. There's no air pressure to maintain to optimize safety, fuel economy or range. There is no downtime associated with air-loss issues. Nonpneumatic tires perform exactly as they are designed to perform.

And that main advantage to airless tires—maintenance-free products that ensure maximum uptime of vehicles—is something that fits perfectly in the fleet sphere and less so into the consumer space, where most of a vehicle's life is spent in park.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense for us to be catering to consumer passengers right now," Rachita said. "It is who owns thousands of electric cars that they want to provide as a service, and therefore, is running it all the time?"