Major Challenges and Alternative Sources of Natural Rubber in Tire Industry

As the world swiftly moves towards adopting autonomous and Electric vehicles, the tire industry – which is one of the most important components that drive these changes – is still dealing with some major challenges.  

What are those challenges, you ask? Well, let me list them down for you.  

The coming generation of autonomous vehicles needs tires that can withstand high pressure and dampen noise.  And since Electric Vehicles are really hard on tires, it is necessary for the tire to withstand high torque.  

The tire industry also faces several other technological and market challenges because of globalization, increasing competition, lack of digital tools, and growing demand for high technology tires along with environmental sustainability.

In terms of environmental sustainability, maintaining the optimum rolling resistance is another challenge. While lack of rolling resistance decreases the traction,  a lot of resistance results in more fuel consumption, leading to more GHG emissions. Because of more stringent regulations on GHG, tire manufacturers are pushed to develop tires having an optimum rolling resistance. 

Further, a lack of effective recycling methods and alternative sources to natural rubber, Soil compaction due to the huge weight of tractor tires, and Vulcanization energy losses are some other sustainability challenges faced by the industry. And the list still doesn’t end.

You might wonder – You told me all about the problems but is anyone doing anything about it?

Gladly, yes. Various companies in the tire industry have been actively researching over the years and developing new solutions to these challenges. Further, these companies are looking to partner with other companies in the industry and solve these problems together. Yes, collaboration is the future in the tire industry.

We have covered all those insights, along with the detailed list of challenges and solutions to overcome these challenges in our recently released study. 

This is not it. You will also get access to a curated list of alternate rubber sources – mainly natural – that can be useful to the tire industry. They say the major challenges of industry can be found if you analyze the research focus of the top companies in the domain. With that thought, we analyzed the research focus of the following five major companies in the tire industry in recent years:

             

Still not sure if you need to get your hands on this study. Maybe this quick overview can help you decide. 

Here’s what you will find in this exclusive study-

• Prominent challenges in Tire Industry
• • What are major technical challenges associated with the tire industry?
  • Which challenges are being researched by some of the top companies in the tire industry?
  • What steps are being taken by top companies to cope up with the challenges?
• Natural rubber and its alternative sources
• • What is the expected demand for rubber in the next 5 years?
  • Why do we need to shift towards alternative sources of natural rubber?
  • What are the alternative sources to natural rubber production?
  • Which entities are actively researching guayule-based rubber?
  • SWOT analysis of guayule as a rubber source?
  • Which entities are actively researching dandelion-based rubber?
  • SWOT analysis of dandelion as a rubber source?

Do you think this info could help your research team with the challenges at hand?

Have any more questions related to the tire domain that you think are not covered in the above study? Send us your query.

Authored by: Sarvagya Saxena and Komal Kshatri.