OE INTERVIEW: CONTINENTAL Sensors play an even bigger role in the fleet industry, where they can monitor not only inflation pressure and temperature but also vehicle load and tire wear. They have a crucial role to play when it comes to predictive maintenance, generating vital data that can ensure fleet managers know well in advance when a tire will need replacing. Sensors are useful in motorsport applications and for performance cars, and play a key role in autonomous functionality. Ultimately, Wies expects them to be integrated into conductive rubber. Some of these technological advances may be years, or even decades away, but R&D progress is manifesting more rapidly than ever, thanks to simulation and artificial intelligence. As is common across the automotive industry, Wies and his team are already seeing significant reductions in development and testing times. “For a target approval loop, we used to take months, but now this can be reduced significantly,” he says. “Even tire development loops can be reduced by 50-80%.” Continental is also investing significantly in technologies and processes along the entire value chain. A new driving simulator at the company’s Contidrom facility, for example, supports this. “If our test drivers sit in the simulator cockpit in the future and less at the wheel of a vehicle, around 100,000km less will be completed each year on real roads or test tracks,” Wies explains. Simulation also enables closer cooperation with vehicle OEMs. Now, small changes can be agreed rapidly during a virtual test, with multiple experts around the world working at the same time. Technological developments are moving at speed, but what really excites Wies is the focus on circularity, as part of Continental’s sustainability goals. He has a lot of very interesting ideas, some of which are already in the research stage. The Conti GreenConcept tire, for example, leverages both current and emerging technological approaches to the engineering of sustainable tires for passenger car applications. The tire boasts a particularly high “ If our test drivers sit in the simulator cockpit in the future and less at the wheel of a vehicle, 100,000km less will be completed each year on real roads” Above: Retreading is a key technological focus for Continental, with the practice playing a vital role in a number of tire concepts Below: Increasingly sophisticated modeling techniques are helping to reduce product development times percentage of traceable, renewable and recycled materials and, Conti claims, has an innovative, lightweight design that conserves valuable resources. The tire also features an extended service life thanks to a renewable tread. Retreading represents a preferable alterative to decomposing old tires. Here, Wies also has another interesting idea that he calls “the zipper”. Essentially this enables the tread to be removed from a tire, either leaving behind fresh tread or allowing a new tread to be attached – or zipped on, in other words. In many ways, it sounds similar to current retreading practices but without the need to return the tire to a retreading plant to go through the buffing process. Like many of Wies’s ideas, the zipper is currently in the research labs – as is his vision to completely replace the tire’s polyester carcass with other materials. What he does not appear to be researching is the idea to take the air out of tires completely (see Out with the pneu on p36). There have been many concepts for airless tires in recent years, particularly at technology shows, but Wies remains unconvinced by any of them. He believes there will continue to be a need for pneumatic tires, especially for autonomous vehicle applications, which consistently need four perfect tires to operate correctly. Unsurprisingly, Wies is keen to hold back a few of his ideas – after all, he has to keep some secrets. But while he embraces technology and change, he also sees many of the traditional elements of the tire, and the tire industry, continuing for many years to come. 34 www.tiretechnologyinternational.com November 2023