Continental has successfully completed the first driving tests with "dandelion tires". According to the manufacturer, the tires, whose treads were made of the material called "Taraxagum", showed the properties expected by the developers. Nikolai Setzer, who is responsible for the Tires division on the Continental Executive Board, is confident that the new natural rubber tires will be ready for series production within the next five to ten years.
In order to achieve this goal, Continental is working with its development partners on further industrialization. Extensive research work has already made good progress in breeding a high-yielding and robust variant of the Russian dandelion. The goal is "to find an ecologically, economically and socially sensible solution to the increasing demand for natural rubber that relieves the cultivation areas for the traditional rubber tree in the tropics. In addition, the dependence on the sometimes strong price fluctuations on the raw material exchanges for natural rubber should be reduced. In addition, the cultivation of dandelion on previously unused areas in temperate zones of Europe - and thus in geographical proximity to Continental's European tire plants - should also sustainably reduce the logistics effort and environmental pollution."
The manufacturer would like to invest around 35 million euros in a dandelion location in Anklam (Mecklenburg - Western Pomerania). He is currently still looking for a suitable property.
Source: Neue Reifenzeitung
