There is no doubt that Florent Menegaux, the president of Michelin, knows the nightmare of his predecessors: a Europe submerged by low-cost Asian tires. Blanched, Michelin adapted. The group has specialized in premium tires for several years. The “4 seasons” for example or even growth relay par excellence, tires for electric vehicles, planes, trucks or even these gigantic construction machines that roam in the heart of the mines or marble quarries.
To symbolize this strategy, Michelin has opened the doors of its Italian factory in Cuneo, southwest of Turin. A complex of one million square meters. Michelin has been at home there since the 1960s. Every year, 13 million tires roll off the production lines. Cuéno is a technological showcase for the group, even more so in this period of energy crisis.
“Calf Tires”
One of Michelin’s biggest cost items is tire curing. They require steam ovens. Steam produced by gas boilers. A challenge in this time of scarcity. This represents 33% of the energy consumption of a factory. For several years the group has been working on the subject and developing electric ovens with lower energy consumption. A real challenge because cooking “raw tires” is particularly complex. It must be perfectly homogeneous so that the vulcanization occurs in the best conditions. This is to avoid the “toaster effect” of the electric oven.
These electric ovens are arriving very little by little. In Cuneo there are 36 of a total of 399. Objective: to replace 70% of the world’s number of bread presses by 2050. A technology that is gradually being extended to the rest of the group’s factories: Poland, Hungary, Germany, China or even Mexico.
The recipe for success
The other big project is the greening of tires. A tire, explains Florent Ménégaux, is made up of more than 200 components: silica, metal, carbon black, natural and synthetic rubber, sulfur, textiles, oils and resins… Today, explains the president of Michelin, tires are made up by 28% sustainable elements and 72% fossil elements. The goal is to move towards 100% sustainability.
It is therefore a matter of progressively replacing, almost one by one, all these elements with more environmentally friendly substitutes or ensuring that they are produced or extracted in a sustainable way or recycled. A titanic project, but the tire manufacturer can see the first results.
In Italy, Michelin presented for the first time two tires made with 45% and 58% sustainable materials, respectively. Prototypes, surely, but they have been homologated, which means that they can be carried in a car or on a coach. Tires, says Florent Ménégaux, that retain the same performance as conventional tires and, in particular, a low “rolling resistance”. This is the fundamental element, because Florent Menegaux concludes, 20% of the consumption of an electric vehicle is directly linked to its tire.
Source: BFM TV
