Panelists: Future is now for EVs, AVs and tires

The 39th annual Tire Society Conference on Tire Science and Technology concluded Oct. 2 with some intelligent talk on intelligent transportation.

Throughout the week, attendees of the weeklong virtual event took deep dives with academic speakers and industry experts into the world of autonomous and electric vehicles, the infrastructure that will be required in this new era and the tire's role in this "evolutionary and revolutionary" change.

"With these evolving vehicle platforms, we are at a tipping point—where we're on an evolving journey and coming to a revolutionary change," said Chris Queen, director of innovation technology at Goodyear and head of the Beyond Tire Technology projects there.

Moderating an esteemed panel of aerospace, mechanical and design engineers Oct. 2 was Mohammad Behroozi, a senior vehicle dynamicist from General Motors.

Behroozi was joined in the discussion by Ric Mousseau of General Motors, lead engineer in tire modeling at GM; Giorgio Rizzoni, director of the Center of Automotive Research at Ohio State University as well as the Ford Motor Co. chair of ElectroMechanical Systems; Ross Tessien of Electricwaze L.L.C., a mechanical engineer with 43 U.S. patents; and Chris Queen, of Goodyear.

"This is going to be the future for us," Behroozi said. "And as a Tire Society we need to act according to what is going to happen in the future. How is transportation going to look in 10 years?"

Tessien noted that inner city transportation and rural transportation will look very different in the coming years. Rural residents will have far less of a need to use a provider like Uber or Lyft for transportation and far more of a need to own their own vehicles.

Conversely, a smaller percentage of ownership is predicted for urban areas, "where people will evolve away from ownership to renting," he said.

And it is within urban areas, under the main thoroughfares and interstate highway hubs, that Tessien sees an entirely new infrastructure evolving—thousands of miles of tunnels. Tessien currently is working on a high-speed tunnel project with the Boring Co., a spinoff of Elon Musk's SpaceX.

"What is going to be the new normal?" he asked. "Things are going to be completely different than they are today. I don't know how long it will take for fully autonomous vehicles, five years is my guess. That will change transportation as we know it."

Tessien envisions driverless vehicles whipping through the tunnel system at between 120 mph and 150 mph.

"Traffic jams and stop-and-goes will disappear," he said. "Tunnel transportation will begin in earnest in five to 10 years, and within a decade transportation infrastructure will be completely different than it is today."

Of course, infrastructure is expensive, especially if the goal is to replace 44,000 miles of U.S. highways with underground, high-speed equivalents.

"It is interesting in regards to infrastructure," said Rizzoni, who offered the plenary lecture at the Tire Society meeting on the NextCar project. "We are imagining a future with a substantial amount of infrastructure investment, especially with tunnels. The expense would be on the magnitude of the first freeway system."

Rizzoni said the same could be said for electrification. The market penetration for EVs overall currently sits at 2.5 percent, Rizzoni said, and in California that number is closer to 10 percent.

"If these numbers become significant, the role of electric infrastructure will have to adapt," he said.

Either way, a Goodyear engineer is never one to back down from a tire making challenge.

"Tunnels pose a challenge for tire makers—these are high speed, high load and high temperature environments, all exciting challenges for tire engineers," Queen said. "AVs also pose challenges—as they will likely be EV, as well.

"Ross' vision is exciting. That covers on the ground and below—but the potential is that all this can take to the skies as well. All these are mediums to be explored and there will be tires in all three roles."

The innovative compounding and engineering that will be required from tire makers in the future will be pushed by sustainability, tire intelligence and tire performance, the panelists said. The tires will need to be self-healing, have sensors for fuel economy, treadwear and grip, and the ability to transfer this information to the autonomous automobile.

"You no longer have a driver interacting directly with the vehicle, and this affects the requirements of tires," Mousseau said. "They may not have to be as aggressively designed. That offers opportunities.

"Tire design is a trade-off, a trade-off of one performance to another. AVs could reduce higher performance traits, like cornering performance, and then trade up on stopping distance or grip."

Mousseau said it is crucial to know where a vehicle is driving.

"Ride is important, and tire noise is more prominent in an EV, as there is no engine noise," he said. "In addition, we have to be concerned about torque management as EVs generate much more torque. How do we prevent the wheels from spinning? A number of things need to be rebalanced."

Queen said tire makers will need to be flexible in their offerings and innovative in their approaches, perhaps like never before.

"When we think of the future we have to consider the changes in use cases," he said. "A mass shift toward fleet operations is a big change for the vehicle and entire companies. A fleet operations tire is way different than a tire for mass market consumers."

The same goes for the EV platform, vehicles that are likely to be heavier than their internal combustion engine counterparts.

"Adaptability is interesting," Queen said. "If you can morph a tire from city to tunnel-ready, that would provide a nice balance."

The lack of a driver provides an even more interesting dynamic with the literal absence of the human touch.

"We are all taught to pay attention to the road's feel through pedals, the seat, the steering wheel," he said. "How do we provide that sensibility back into the vehicle itself?"

The answer, in part, may be industry cooperation across fields once considered off limits, such as in research and development. But if the industry can curb its competitive spirit enough to eschew the small victories and realize that game changing technology is for everyone, there is reason to be optimistic.

"In the last 50 years, the role of government regulations is to make sure that products developed by the transportation industry are environmentally friendly, energy efficient and safe," Rizzoni said. "The efforts to establish a standard to allow cross-collaboration between companies is fundamental.

"It should be born out of a necessary spirit of cooperation and confidence. We should be thinking about how to interact with one another."

Rizzoni said he has the "great advantage of not being a tire expert."

"I can imagine things," he said. "I see an increasingly connected world with greater and greater computational capabilities. Would it be possible to imagine a world in which tires are capable of adapting themselves to ambient conditions, providing variable performance? As far as evolutions and revolutions, in many ways we are poised and ripe for a revolution. Let's not forget that the typical life cycle of a vehicle is 17 to 20 years. That is a lot of tire changes. But autonomy is coming."

Rizzoni noted that replacing current internal combustion engine vehicles with a new generation of vehicles will take place progressively.

"Remember that for awhile many vehicles will still be operated by human beings, and there will be a mix of both types of vehicles on the roads together. That is a challenge that needs to be met for sure," Rizzoni said.

Mousseau agreed that the fallibility and unpredictability of human beings—and estimating the nearly infinite possibilities of what could go wrong—is going to be difficult.

"At slow speeds, such as in cities and urban areas, the risks are fewer," Mousseau said. "With Ross' tunnel vision, I'd love to see it, though."

The regulatory challenges—meeting environmental, noise, safety and industry certification standards—will mirror the technical challenges in both the auto manufacturing and tire making worlds, the panelists said.

"Certainly we need to adapt," Queen said. "We have survived in the past by adapting, and we are making our future bets in many different areas—safety, quieter ride and sustainability. Partnering early and working together as an industry where it makes sense, and then letting the game-changers occur within the industry, will be crucial."

For instance, battery-powered EVs will benefit from quieter tires—but the trade-off is that what makes a tire quieter also enhances its grip, and the vehicles will be heavier.

To meet this requirement in his vision for a high-speed, underground highway system, Tessien predicts that rubberized asphalt will be used within tunnels as such a surface tends to be much quieter.

"But there are other problems here with micro- and nano-particulates coming from the tires," Tessien said. "When you breathe, these are small enough to get past the blood-brain barrier and can affect development in children. There are standards for air pollution as it relates to gas and specifically diesel engines, as well as tire particulates.

"It may be a good idea to design gutters in the tunnels where these particulates can settle and be vacuumed up. But in the end, I'm not expecting regulatory opposition, I'm expecting regulatory support."

If history provides any context, regulations and industry standards have been driven by safety and sustainability, Rizzoni said.

"In the past and in the present, regulatory activities have been guided and founded upon environmental and safety concerns," he said. "The relationship between the sustainability of industries and the life cycles of tires is important. But the dominant perspective should be the safety angle."