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TECHNOLOGY
Bridgestone Uses Retread Technology to Develop Truck and Bus Tyre Technology
Bridgestone Corporation has announced that it has developed a new truck and bus tyre manufacturing technology that will result in both significant resource conservation and enhanced fuel efficiency. The new technology is called TRISAVER, a reference to the three types of savings it enables: savings of costs, resources and CO 2 emissions and was launched at the recent IAA exhibition in Hanover.
Since acquiring Bandag in 2007, Bridgestone has been in development of a global solutions business using retread tyres and Bandag's retread technology. While new tyres are manufactured by vulcanising all the materials at once, retread tyre manufacturing bonds together a separate and previously vulcanised casing and the tread. Focusing on this basic difference in manufacturing methods, Bridgestone has discovered that overall performance of the tyre can be improved by manufacturing the casing and tread through a process that is optimal for each component.
Bridgestone's TRISAVER technology uses this innovative manufacturing method, as well as a revolutionary new compound in both the casing and the tread. This new technology greatly reduces rolling resistance compared to conventional tyres, and at the same time enhances durability, thereby potentially increasing the number of times the tyre can be retreaded.
This revolutionary new technology offers customer value through cost savings, since greater durability means the tyre can be retreaded more times, and improved fuel efficiency through lower rolling resistance. At the same time, the technology benefits the environment by using resources more effectively and reducing CO 2 emissions. With plans to market this new technology in the near future, Bridgestone is in the process of conducting road trials and analysing product marketability.
The Bridgestone Group has established the long-term environmental goals of using 100 per cent sustainable materials, i.e. materials that are not expected to become depleted as a result of consumption, as opposed to fossil resources and other limited resources: and contributing to reaching the globally-agreed target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, for example a CO 2 emissions reduction of at
Bridgestone has a vision that sees it as a leader in developing a greener tyre industry
least 50 per cent by 2050 as agreed at the G8 summit in Toyako, Hokkaido in July 2008. This shared target, which was accepted at the same year's Major Economies Meeting on preventing global warming (including developed countries plus China and India among other countries), is used as the globally agreed target.
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