Michelin’s ‘démonstrateur 46’ tyre will appear at Le Mans for the first time this year fitted to the fuel-cell-powered Green GT H24 prototype that will perform a parade lap ahead of the race’s start.
Revealed earlier this year at June’s Movin’On international sustainable mobility summit, it is the first racing tyre to be able to claim that 46 percent of the materials it contains are sustainable.
The ‘démonstrateur 46’ tyre consequently stands out as an eloquent illustration of Michelin’s advance in the field of sustainable and high-tech materials and has seen the company successfully combine a high proportion of sustainable materials with very high performance, a circle often considered impossible to square.
Such a high proportion of sustainable materials has been achieved by increasing the quantity of natural rubber and incorporating carbon black recovered from endof-life tyres. The other bio-sourced or recycled sustainable materials that go into this new tyre include everyday products like orange and lemon peel, sunflower oil, resin oil and pine resin, along with recycled scrap steel.
The ‘démonstrateur 46’ tyre is a concrete example of the Group’s All Sustainable plan, whereby all Michelin tyres will be made entirely of sustainable materials by 2050, with an interim target of sustainable materials making up 40 percent of their content by 2030.
In addition to using sustainable materials for the production of its tyres, Michelin employs eco-design procedures to minimise their environmental impact at every step of their lifecycle.