AKRON, OHIO, US — Soybean oil is a featured ingredient in the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s demonstration tire made of 90% sustainable materials, showing significant progress toward the company’s goal of introducing a 100% sustainable-material tire by 2030.

The 90% demonstration tire has 17 featured ingredients, including four different carbon blacks produced from bio-methane, carbon dioxide, end-of-life tire pyrolysis oil feedstocks and plant-based materials such as soybean oil, rice husk ash silica and bio-renewable pine tree resins. This follows the introduction of a 70% sustainable-material tire in January 2022. 

“Sustainability is a key component of our business strategy and an integral part of our culture,” said Richard J. Kramer, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Goodyear, with the June 27 release of the company’s 2022 report for corporate responsibility performance. “In 2022, the work of our associates around the world further demonstrated our commitment to ethical and sustainable processes, materials and programs.”

Goodyear said the 90% demonstration tire has passed all applicable regulatory testing and the company’s internal testing. This demonstration tire also tested to have lower rolling resistance when compared to the reference tire made with traditional materials. Lower rolling resistance means this demonstration tire has the potential to offer better fuel savings and carbon footprint reduction.

Goodyear’s first soy-based city transit tires, the Metro Miller G152 and G652 tires, began production in 2022. The tires use soybean oil to displace petroleum in the production of tires to outfit a metropolitan area’s bus fleet. The company estimated soybean oil replaces 11 liquid ounces of free-flowing petroleum per tire, or about 20 barrels of oil when outfitting a metro fleet of 1,600 buses.