How to make an EV tire that won’t pollute the environment

Congratulations, world. We have done it. Since we passed the Clean Air Act in the 1970s, we have dramatically reduced emissions of cancer-causing particles from our cars and other sources, a change that has added years to our lives.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that we can now spend more time focusing on the remaining sources, including the unexpected ones. In the era of EVs, tires are becoming the biggest emitters of particulate matter, and as we’ve seen, whether it’s microplastics in our ropes or preservatives in our salmon, they have a troubling effect on our environment.

Gunnlaugur Erlendsson wants to do something about it. The friendly Icelander founded Enso to address what he saw as a growing need for better EV tires. The UK-based company’s next big move comes close to home: a $500 million US tire factory dedicated to building eco-friendly tires for EVs.

Well, environmentally friendly, anyway.

Enso’s 2016 launch was “a bit ahead of the curve” when it comes to EV adoption, according to Erlendsson. “There were only a few research reports done on tire pollution, and almost none of them were actually on the topic of microplastics or air pollution,” he said.

But the script was on the way. Early industry supercars, like the Tesla Model S, offered more power than the internal combustion cars they competed against but also carried significant weight penalties. The Model S Plaid, for example, is the same size as the Lexus ES but weighs about 1,000 pounds and has more than three times the horsepower. More weight and more power means more tire wear, resulting in expensive and frequent trips to the shop for fresh rubber.

While EV-specific tires are becoming more common, Erlendsson says many tire manufacturers are focusing more on partnering with car manufacturers, shipping new tires and new cars. “So even though the technology is there to make tires better today, it doesn’t reach 90 percent of the tire industry, which is the aftermarket,” he said.

While Erlendsson said Enso is working to develop partnerships with those automakers, the company’s business model in the U.S. will focus on 90 percent, making tires in the right configuration for popular EVs, regardless of brand, and then selling them directly to customers.

What makes Enso tires different? Erlendsson was tight-lipped about technical details but promised 10 percent more rolling resistance than conventional tires, equal to a corresponding increase in range. That will make your EV run cheaper, while a 35 percent increase in tire life means less wear and tear, fewer particles in the air, and fewer old tires sent to the incinerator, where half of all American tires end up.

Enso’s new plant will also handle recycling. It will be carbon neutral, doesn’t rely on carbon reducers, and will make tires from recycled carbon black and tire silica made from rice husks.

But what about 6PPD, the troublesome tire preservative that’s showing up in our fish and even our bodies? Enso still uses it, but its days are numbered.

“All tire companies in the world are using 6PPD in their current production tires,” Erlendsson said. “The technology to eliminate 6PPD exists,” he added, but declined to discuss the topic further, citing restrictions due to signed NDAs. Research organizations in California and Washington state have released early evaluations of alternatives, but none appear to be a silver bullet that will save our tires without harming the environment.

The use of 6PPD is still allowed, but the EPA recently issued new guidelines to monitor its presence, and earlier this year, Washington state passed a bill to regulate its use. More restrictions are coming, which Enso says it welcomes.

Enso aims to produce 5 million tires from the new plant by 2027. Its location is still being finalized, but Enso mentions Colorado, Nevada, Texas, or Georgia as possible locations. With the southeastern United States increasingly becoming a hub for EV production and the so-called “Battery Belt” seeing significant investment from startups like Redwood Materials, that last option may be the safest bet.

A factory of that size would be a big step for Enso, which currently supplies tires exclusively for use by ships in the UK, including Royal Mail. For Guardianresearch from Transport for London, which regulates public transport in the city, shows Enso tires live up to Erlendsson’s claims of increased efficiency, reduced wear and tear, and reduced costs.

If Enso can deliver that on a large scale to American drivers, it will meet the company’s usual goals of selling more things to more people. Erlendsson sees this as a way to reset the economics of today’s tires.

“The proposal to sell fewer tires is not attractive to many listed companies in this industry,” he said. “It’s hard for someone with a legacy manufacturing and distribution model and a legacy distribution model to suddenly say, ‘I’m going to make fewer tires, and I’m going to spend more to make them,’ while not increasing your stock price at the same time.”

Of course, elevating an industry over 150 years old is no small feat either.