Goodyear Oxygene concept tires debuted at the Geneva Motor Show contain living moss at the center of the tire. They draw in moisture from the road and output oxygen -- basically just doing what plants do. Goodyear estimates a that if every car in Paris had these tires, it would remove some 4,000 tons of CO2 each year. That's equivalent to removing about 4,500 cars from the road there. The plant-filled center is also biohacked to extract a small amount of electricity from photosynthesis. This powers the tire's on-board sensors and sidewall lighting strips, which are imagined as a new form of car-to-pedestrian communication. The electrical generating part isn't pure fantasy: The University of Georgia demonstrated it in the lab in 2013. No word about LRR in the article. Goodyear's Oxygene tire is actually alive - Roadshow Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
The article speculated, but didn't say. The press release was equally non-specific: Goodyear Unveils Oxygene, a Concept Tire Designed to Support Cleaner and More Convenient Urban They also announced an ultra-LRR concept tire for EVs: Goodyear Newsroom : Goodyear Presents New Tire Technology Designed to Advance the Performance of Electric Vehicles That sounds pretty interesting, although nobody reported about it. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Arid climates; instead of watering the lawn I don't have I'll be watering my tires. Wonder how they stay balanced. Wonder how they handle at 85 mph. Solid core, no flats? Guess I better break out my Google search and find out.
It was before I had any caffeine so I couldn't think of anything clever. I bought a flat of Monster and a pack of matcha powder when I was at Costco buying Rx glasses. Good deal, $600 for 3 pairs (regular pair and a spare, 1 for computer work), frames included, 1.67 high index progressive lenses with UV protection, AR and anti-glare coating. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
If my math is right, a typical car tire at highway speed has centrifugal acceleration above 400 times (earth surface) gravity. It is not obvious that moss would thrive being variably under such conditions. Guess they must have tested it though... Making tires using much less rubber-tree sap would take a lot of pressure off tropical forests that have not yet been converted to Hevea plantations. Could put pressure on some other system, to be sure. But those plantations compared to their precedent forests have much less ecological niftyness.
Y'all can just talk about novel tires and don't need to be bothered much by my 'spinoffs'. I honestly never thought to apply centrifugal equation to tires before. Because, why would one? But now having done so, I can imagine some interesting science-fair experiments. Mosses are non-vascular plants. Arabidopsis is a small, conventionally vascular plants (it has tubes) used as the 'lab rat' for plant biology. Seriously, more is known about Arabidopsis than any other plant. Grow both up in tubes and zip-tire them to your Prius rims. Who knows what you might learn? Anyway, one website told me global tire production is above 2 billion units. That represents a lot of forests having become, well, diminished. Latex sap is boiled 'in the field' with formic or other acids. It is unforgettably stinky and not much of a tourist attraction. And yet, interesting.
There are ultracentrifuges that generate >100,000 times earth's gravity. Beasts with titanium rotors. We leave the room when those are running
Bloodhound SSC is a supersonic wheeled vehicle in development. Its wheels will be exerted to 50,000 g. Man oh man.
What eats moss? Mice eat moss, so, now after the mice dine on the moss sidewalls for desert they can nibble on the tofu covered wires I see a market for ultrasonic devices charged by solar that emit and disperse rodents when stopped, on the strapping holding the moss, for safety's sake.
Ours was just aluminum. Quiet since it spun in a vacuum. We have a stainless steel 100k psi pressure vessel. About a meter across and tall. Holds 2 liters.
If I park my car with the moss tires oriented in the same direction every day, will the north side tires grow more moss than the Sun facing south side? But until the Moss model is available, we have this new tire entry from Goodyear, specifically for electric cars.
Or you could set up mini capacitor systems that would accumulate the electricity generated either by the moss or by the rotation of the wheels, to stun the pesky mice! Posted via the PriusChat mobile app. AChoiredTaste.com
It would give new meaning to the term, "tire rotation". Spread your moss evenly; it could create a new industry, "Moss Grooming"! Posted via the PriusChat mobile app. AChoiredTaste.com
