Trucking industry moving forward

The commercial trucking industry is transitioning into a more advanced state with different technology emerging in different spaces—from striving for electric battery-powered trucks to full-on autonomous long-haul shipping.

While some of this technology isn't ready to roll out just yet, tire makers are exploring what they can do to drive the commercial trucking industry forward.

Major players in the game are researching and developing new materials, technology and designs, going beyond the standard tire pressure monitoring system, or even the physical tire itself, while also keeping sustainability at the core of this initiative.

Nashville-based Bridgestone Americas Inc. is focusing on the development of advanced tire sensors—like TPMS, but a step further, said Dan Levy, executive director of product and mobility solutions at Bridgestone.

"There's tremendous applicability of technologies like TPMS within commercial trucking," he said, noting the usefulness of having insight to tire pressure and temperature for long-haul vehicles especially.

"But the work that we're doing and where we're focusing a lot of investment is beyond TPMS," he said. "We're working on new advanced sensors—which are actually integrated into the tires themselves—that do some of the basics of monitor temperature, monitor pressure, but have a deeper understanding of the operational conditions of the tire and are useful in developing an understanding of the interface between the tire and the road.

"With those deeper understandings comes the ability to drive actionable outcomes, and those outcomes relate to driving down the total cost of ownership for the fleet operator as well as increasing the safety of operation," he added.

This ties into a Bridgestone initiative in the connected vehicle sphere, "when you have the opportunity to marry up tire data with other vehicle data," Levy said.

"We have developed some capability that's powerful in its precision and its predictive nature, and through these capabilities we're developing cloud-based applications that fleets can tap into where we give them access to advanced analytics," he said, like "advanced insights about the state of their tires, the health of their tires, the performance characteristics of the tires, the manner in which the vehicles have been driven and how that relates to performance of those tires.

"Those types of insights equip fleets to really manage their assets more correctly and to lower their overall total cost of ownership."

Hankook Tire & Technology Co. Ltd. is gearing up for fully autonomous commercial trucking.

"Hankook Tire is preparing for the upcoming autonomous vehicle era. The convergence of connected IT and the automotive sector is redefining cars as mobile devices and leading up to this disruption in the industry," said Rob Williams, vice president of U.S. TBR sales at Hankook Tire America Corp.

"When commercial vehicles become fully automated, we can expect driving hours to be longer since it will not involve human labor," he said. "In response to this, Hankook Tire is developing original technologies by using new raw materials and adopting new structures to improve robustness of tires to cope with longer miles of driving."

For the Seongnam-Si, South Korea-based company, this looks like smart sensors, like TPMS, and self-reliant systems, like self-sealing technology in tire tread for punctures, which will be crucial, "since there will be no driver inside to check the tire conditions or hazards on the road," Williams said.

Hanover, Germany-based tire maker Continental A.G. is no stranger to looking toward the future, having been in the game for 150 years.

Tom Fanning, Conti's head of U.S. marketing for truck tires, highlighted the company's digital monitoring solutions and how they can save fleets time and money.

"Fleets no longer have to rely on performing tire pressure checks on tens, hundreds or even thousands of tires on their vehicles. With Continental's digital tire monitoring solutions, they will know whether any tires have low pressure or high temperature," he said.

"Leveraging the Internet of Things (IOT) saves fleets time and money by protecting their tires and improves safety for everyone who drives on the roadway. Fleets are able to replace manual and routine tire care with automatic and targeted care," Fanning added. "They are fixing tire issues where they are known to exist, and saving inspection and maintenance time."

These digital monitoring solutions include ContiConnect Yard Reader, which displays tire pressure and temperature data for every vehicle in a fleet in a single web portal; ContiPressureCheck, which monitors a single vehicle in real time, alerting the driver to tire pressure and temperature issues via an in-cab display; and ContiPressureCheck Solo, Conti's standalone TPMS for trailers.

"Tires are our passion. Our technological excellence has ensured safety, reliability and sustainability for 150 years. We are proud of this," Christian Koetz, head of the tires business area and member of the executive board of Conti, said in an email to Rubber News.

The tire maker calls itself a "pioneer in the field of digitalization" in the tire industry.

"As early as 1999 the tire manufacturer demonstrated that the data required for advanced driver assistance systems can be determined even more accurately and quickly if the tire is used as a data source," the company said. "This was the birth of the intelligent tire. Meanwhile, Continental is connecting its tires and their sensors to the cloud and offering its customers completely new, smart and digital tire solutions and services."

Koetz said much of today's technology in tires comes from Conti. "Time and time again, we push the boundaries of what is possible," he said.

Conti said it uses "direct connection of its tires and sensors to the cloud to offer completely new business models."

"Fed by a large number of data points, Continental's fleet customers can check the condition of their tires at any time using algorithms developed in-house," the company said. "This means that tire maintenance can be carried out on an as-needed basis, not as a preventive measure, and thus much more efficiently."

This minimizes downtime, increases safety, lowers overall costs with increased energy efficiency and paves the way to generally more efficient operations, Conti added.

Michelin said it's dedicated to its commercial customers and invests in R&D to help make them more successful.

"We are constantly looking at our products and measuring our performance not only (versus) our competitors but, more important, for customer needs," said Thomas Stacey, urban and regional B2B product manager at Michelin. "When we need a breakthrough to satisfy our customers, we commission our R&D department to dig deep in a specific area."

For Michelin, this is seen in its tire technology for last-mile delivery, he said, highlighting the company's Agilis CrossClimate tire for small businesses and commercial fleets.

"This tire was designed specifically for ¾- and 1-ton pickup trucks and vans used in commercial applications, as well as for European van platforms that have become increasingly popular in the North American market," he said, noting the trades, food and parcel delivery as well as telecom and utility fleets.

"Certain segments of the commercial truck market are seeing a trend toward electrification. As the transport industry evolves toward electric vehicles, the usage conditions of tires may change along with the performance criteria that OEMs and fleets will prioritize," Stacey said. "Manufacturers will have to adapt the design of their tires and retreads to these new usage conditions to maximize the performance of the new vehicles."

He said the commercial trucking industry is "entering a 'bridge' phase, during which diesel and new energy vehicles (NEVs) will operate together on our roads.

"During the transition, we will continue to develop and produce tires that sustainably deliver the best value for fleets using both internal combustion engines and new energy," he said.

More trucks will need to be on the road due to the increase in freight demand, Stacey said, so "there is an increased need for tires on both original equipment and replacement sides."

Marco Verzino, vice president of technical, product management and OE at Prometeon Tyre Group—formerly Pirelli Industrial—said the company is a "small player" in the U.S. commercial trucking industry, noting it started selling commercial tires in the country between 2017 and 2018.

The company is "well established," however, in its passenger and light truck presence in the U.S., he said, and is making strides in Europe trucking.

To expand the company's presence in the U.S. commercial trucking industry, he said, the company sees attaching services to products that work as fundamental.

"The service part is almost as important as the technical aspects, especially going forward a few years from now," he said. "Therefore, providing services to the fleets and to the dealers to demonstrate and to track the value provided by the tire is a key aspect of our way forward."

Prometeon launched its Pro Services suite in Europe and is testing it in the U.S., Verzino said. This includes Pro Check, a digital monitoring system to maximize the life of tires for fleets and dealers, and a repository to handle the data of the tires; Pro Time, for 24/7 roadside assistance; Pro Management, which manages tire orders, stock and invoicing for dealers; and Pro Retread, which offers retreading for fleets.

These services are not rolled out in the U.S. yet, but Prometeon is aiming to have the Pro Services suite as a standard offering in the country by the second half of 2022.

At Hankook, Williams said the work must exceed the tires themselves when advancing toward an autonomous commercial trucking industry.

"Last year, (Hankook) developed a solution that preemptively detects potential hazardous risks on the road in collaboration with SK Planet, a leading data and testing company," he said, pointing to Hankook's Road Risk Detection Solution.

"The Road Risk Detection Solution is designed to analyze road noise acquired from a moving vehicle through artificial intelligence and deep learning technology to identify potential risk factors on the road—such as rainfall, snow, black ice, accidents and other factors—that may contribute to hazardous situations."

Hankook also is carrying out "future oriented projects," he said, such as its "The Next Driving Lab campaign."

The latest outcome of this campaign is what Hankook calls the "Transforming Tire," a "variable-type tire that has adopted the structure of paper-folding crafts to transform its shape automatically in response to road conditions," Williams said.

"It is designed to transform into a smaller diameter tire on the pavement to ensure stability and fast responsiveness while transforming into a larger diameter tire with tread blocks on unpaved rough roads."

Two additional projects at Hankook focused on "leading the next era of mobility" are the "Design Innovation" project and the recently unveiled "Hankook Platform System (HPS)-Cell."

The Design Innovation project is Hankook's R&D project, Williams said, where the company collaborates with leading design universities to seek out solutions for current and future driving challenges.

Hankook's HPS-Cell project "is a modular platform based on an airless tire featuring unit-cell structure," he said.

"It uses sensor technology to not only identify tire treads and road conditions in real time, but also respond to wear-out risks and change tread patterns according to the road conditions utilizing variable wheels and optimized infrastructure."

Levy said "the size of our ambitions" helps Bridgestone stand out when it comes to bringing the commercial trucking industry closer to an autonomous future—which means a great deal of collaboration.

There certainly are other tire companies working on autonomous commercial trucking and supplying the right tires for such a future, he said. "I think where we're a bit differentiated is the scale of our partnership activities, the scale of our M&A activities and the scale of R&D funding that we're putting behind some of our solutions."

In June, Bridgestone announced a minority investment in Kodiak Robotics, a U.S.-based self-driving trucking company, where the tire maker would implement its tire technology into Kodiak's trucks.

In a news release on the announcement, Bridgestone noted the partnership "will also pilot future autonomous and smart tire technologies to further enhance vehicle intelligence and advance toward a safer, more efficient and more sustainable mobility future."

And in August, the company partnered with Stockholm, Sweden-based Einride A.B. to co-create "innovative and sustainable mobility solutions for electrified and autonomous Class 8 vehicles," the company said.

"We really think we have enormous ambitions in this face, and we are investing a tremendous amount to solve the problems that are the biggest and most important for the commercial trucking industry," Levy said.

"Our approach is focused on delivering value by tapping into an ecosystem that exists—and that we know we must partner with—in order to drive the types of outcomes that we think are most important for commercial trucking," he added.

Hankook also is savvy in partnerships, doing its part to enhance efficiency in the commercial trucking industry. While telematics and fleet management software isn't new, Williams said, fleet managers traditionally have not had visibility when it comes to tires.

"What matters to commercial fleet owners is efficiency," he said. "Understanding that tires play a key role in improving efficiency, Hankook Tire is researching innovative ways to improve TBR products at all levels."

He highlighted Hankook's partnership with Revvo Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based advanced smart tire technology and predictive data analytics company, and Junk King, a North American eco-friendly junk removal and hauling company, "to provide real-time tire data and alerts for fleets aimed at improving safety and increasing productivity.

"The partnership integrated Hankook's SmartFlex tires with Revvo's leading edge tire technology and advanced data analytics product suite to provide critical tire-specific data for 30 percent of Junk King's vehicles currently operating in California," Williams said. "Revvo's advanced tire- sensing platform embeds a proprietary sensor inside of each tire in a vehicle and captures real-time tire data. That data is processed and turned into actionable insights, including predicted tread life, abnormal tire behavior, optimal tire maintenance intervals and settings and real-time alerts."

Prometeon also is working on tire sensors "designed to integrate with other systems within the truck," Verzino said, adding that the company is "very conscious that we're not the only one."

He said while competitors in the U.S. already have products on the market, Prometeon is working on its second generation of sensors that it plans to launch in Europe next year. The company will bring testing of the technology to North America before it can be made commercially available, he said.

"Everybody has its own technology, its own experience, its own history," Verzino said. "Everybody is probably working on these aspects—these attributes—of the tire."