Mobility and green transportation conferences are all the rage nowadays, but Michelin hosted its first such event way back in 1998. By 2004 the event started roving around the world with the name Michelin Challenge Bibendum. In 2017 it came to Montreal and was renamed Movin’On. That name and location have stuck for 2018, and we attended to find out what the world’s leading mobility innovators were doing to guarantee that Earth’s burgeoning population will be able to get around for another 50 years without killing the planet. This year’s theme: Bringing Global, Smart, Sustainable and Multimodal Mobility to Life. Below is a tiny sample of what the sold-out crowd of thousands learned at the myriad conferences, working sessions, and labs presented at the three-day event.
Tire Teachings
Printed Treads. Americans hate thinking about tires. For this reason, we mostly buy all-season tires with tread-life ratings long enough to outlive our lease or loan. Great technological leaps make this feasible (tread compounds that vary with tread depth, channels and sipes that vary in width the deeper they go, etc.). Still, carrying all that extra rubber around for the first half of the tire’s life increases mass, inertia, rolling resistance, and hence fuel consumption. Michelin’s solution: a speedy process of 3D tread printing performed with the tires on the car while you wait. Print me six months of summer tread, then print me six months of winter tread. In each case, the depth will be minimal. This concept made its debut on Michelin’s Tweel-derived Vision Concept airless tire, but the idea works (and will inevitably roll out first) on a traditional pneumatic tire. Green bonus: Frequent retreading keeps the tire carcass out of the landfill. And as for thinking about the tires? Connected tire technology will keep the driver informed as to when a retread is called for and could even suggest optimal tread patterns and depths tailored to the owner’s driving style. Folks doing burnouts in Dodge Demons may need to print a lot more tread depth.
Regulate us! Michelin CEO Jean-Dominique Senard all but called for regulation to prohibit replacement of tires that still have life left in them as a means to eliminate what Michelin pegs as 400 million tires currently being sent to landfills before their time. An industrialist begging for regulation? That’s pretty jarring for American ears to hear, but it may be motivated by the extensive work Michelin has done to ensure that its tires perform—if not equally well in all respects, then at least with safety equivalent to that of new tires. For this reason, in jurisdictions that require tire performance ratings (like Europe, which gives letter grades), Senard and Michelin have been pushing to amend the regulation to require testing of both worn and new tires. And his team urges you to use your Michelins right down to their 2/32-inch wear bars. A future change in the business model could also achieve this goal. A great example: The airline industry pays for its tires by the number of landings they survive, not per tire. Michelin maintains them (retreading them as many as three times) to maximize the landings each tire can manage before it’s replaced.
80 in ’48. Today, Michelin tires are composed of 72 percent petrochemicals, 26 percent biorenewable stuff, and 2 percent recycled materials. But the company has set a goal to increase the total renewable/recycled material bill to 80 percent by 2048 (30 recycled/50 renewable). To help achieve that goal, Michelin just acquired Lehigh Technologies of Atlanta. Lehigh’s Micronized Rubber Powder process first uses liquid nitrogen to supercool shredded rubber. The rubber then feeds through a turbo mill (imagine a jet engine with teeth) that pulverizes it into nanoparticles (105–400 microns in size). Michelin mostly buys the smallest particles, because they can comprise 10 percent of the tread compound (the larger particles can only account for 2 percent). Lehigh’s current feedstock comes from whole tires, but micropowders made exclusively from tread compounds could someday increase the permissible blend percentage. Finally, Michelin’s project BioButterfly aims to find a biomass substitute for the petrochemical biobutadien that most tiremakers use. The project is presently assessing wood chips or pulp and beets that are first converted to an alcohol and then to biobutadien. Michelin’s 80 in ’48 plan is expected to save 33 million barrels of oil.
Sustainable Boats
Youthful French startup Zéphyr & Borée seeks to bring the latest America’s Cup windenergy tech to the sea-shipping business. Its goal is to reduce a cargo ship’s carbon footprint by 70 percent via a combination of hybridized propulsion and the use of rigid two-panel airfoil sails. Designed in conjunction with naval architecture firm VPLP, maritime engineering company AVELAJ, and a consortium of university research centers, Z&B is now in talks with various companies to build the sail concept. Unlike cloth sails, which are typically held perpendicular to a stiff wind (causing the boat to lean), the rigid wing sails transmit their maximum thrust at a much smaller angle of attack, so there’s vastly less tipping force on the hull. A 15-knot wind is said to provide 30 percent of the ship’s propulsive force, while a 30-knot side wind can independently propel the ship. Payback for the technology is estimated at six years.
Neoline, a startup hailing from Nantes, France, is also proposing a return to sails, but its Neoliner employs 41,400 square feet of good old-fashioned cloth sails. The ship uses fore and aft pairs of main sheets (with masts mounted to the side of the hull, not the center where they might reduce cargo capacity), plus two jib sheets—one at the bow and one amidships. The sails are augmented by 4,700 horsepower of diesel-electric propulsion (a natural gas option is under investigation), but the Neoliner’s emissions are slashed by 90 percent when it operates by wind power. The proposed ship is configured with two large ramps, one at the stern and one on the starboard aft side, for easy roll-on-roll-off cargo loading. Because the ship has been designed using parts already in production, it’s expected to launch in 2020.
The SeaBubbles electric water taxi seeks to “make our cities flow again.” Its parlor trick: three hydrofoils that let this little boat hover efficiently above the water and wake as soon as it hits about 7 mph. Top speed for this four-passenger (plus pilot) open or closed boat is about 35 mph. This first version is intended only for use on inland lakes, rivers, and closed bays. A 20-kW-hr battery lasts about 3 hours and takes approximately 2 hours to recharge on a (20-kW) Level 2 charger. Five prototypes have already been built, and the company has 20 preorders that are projected for delivery in the summer of 2019. Those have sold for €140,000 ($163,674) each.
Another Hyperloop
Valencia Spain–based startup Zeleros is working on its own unique hyperloop concept. This hyperloop differs from SpaceX’s Hyperloop Alpha concept in its propulsion and suspension designs. The Zeleros approach aims to drastically reduce the cost per mile of the tube infrastructure. Instead of being accelerated by linear magnets, the Zeleros concept operates in a mild vacuum (0.7 psi below normal pressure, or similar to an airplane cabin) and uses aerodynamic propulsion. A compressor sucks air from in front of the pod and expels it out the back. And instead of magnetic levitation, it uses magnetic attraction to the roof of the tube. This setup involves vastly less copper and less energy to operate. The Zeleros team won Top Design Concept and Propulsion/Compression Subsystem Technical Excellence awards from SpaceX at 2016’s Hyperloop Design Weekend. It’s gone on to build a scale prototype and is seeking funding for a 2-km full scale test track next year. Zeleros believes this design will be better optimized for the longest hyperloop routes, with a projected top speed of more than 600 mph.
Cycles
VUF 4R’s new riff on the three-wheeled granny-trike involves a tricky rear suspension that lets the whole thing lean into corners. The cool thing is that as it does so, a platform behind the rider’s seat remains flat and level. It’s perfect for accommodating a cargo delivery box, or a trailer hitch for a dualie (bike-tired) trailer capable of larger loads. The trike can carry an impressive 660 pounds. It has pedals, but there’s a Shimano DU-E6001 0.3-hp/37-lb-ft electric motor fed by a 418-W-hr battery to help get those loads moving and assist on hills. Intended for urban deliver duty, the trike also has a parking brake to hold it steady when you need to unload it on an incline. Pricing was not available at press time.
Think of the SnikkyBike as a cross between a scooter and a scaled-down penny-farthing bicycle. There’s no seat; you stand on this super-short-wheelbase (28-inch) two-wheeler and motor around via the 16-inch power-hub rear wheel. The 27.5-inch front wheel steers and takes the bigger bumps better. The aluminum bike weighs around 34 pounds, so it’s easy to carry up to an apartment. Or chain it at the street and bring up just the 9-pound 500-W-hr battery (it’s good for about 15 miles of range and charges in 3 to 4 hours from a 120-volt household plug). The rear wheel provides regenerative braking, and the front gets a traditional rim-clamp brake. Expect to pay $1,800 Canadian ($1,390 U.S.) when it goes on sale later this year.
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