More than just the "ambition" of tires under intelligent digitalization

A while ago, my best friend came to me for help. Her tire had a serious physical conflict with the curb, resulting in a large bulge on the side of the tire. She was told that the tire was beyond repair and needed to be replaced quickly. She was extremely regretful, "I just replaced the new tire. I am so sad!"

In fact, some tire bulges are difficult to detect with tire pressure monitoring equipment. If the bulge continues to be used, it may cause a tire blowout, which may endanger the lives of drivers and passengers. So, the question is, if you encounter a sudden stone, pothole or obstacle that cannot be seen by the naked eye, and the tire is damaged because you don't have time to dodge, can you only blame yourself for your bad luck? Today we will introduce a topic - smart tires. With the blessing of various high-tech, tires are no longer ordinary rubber rings.

Quickly understand the main idea of ​​the full text in 30 seconds:

★Tires with tire pressure monitoring systems are not considered smart tires. Smart tires are those that can automatically monitor and adjust tire temperature and air pressure, etc., so that they can maintain the best operating state under different conditions.
　　

★“Passive” tires will gradually be eliminated. At present, tire manufacturers such as Goodyear, Pirelli and Continental are actively transforming to create intelligent connected tires.
　　

★The intelligent transformation of tires cannot be achieved overnight. It requires complex testing and inspection. Data will become a strategic tool for understanding consumer needs.
　　

★Few companies can create intelligent connected products on their own, so tire manufacturers will also enter the ecosystem era, and their business models will quietly change.

At present, the only thing ordinary end users know about the intelligence of tires seems to be the tire pressure monitoring system. In fact, as the only part of the car that touches the ground, the tire is no longer the black rubber ring. In the cloud live broadcast of this year's Geneva Motor Show (the show was cancelled, and companies could only "cloud"), a renewable tire was also surprisingly discovered. Users can add a "capsule" to the tire at any time to change the tread material to meet diverse needs. Of course, this advanced technology may still be far away, but the smart tires supported by interconnected technology are already in bud.

■Tires also have “intelligence”

You may wonder, isn't the tire pressure monitoring system (TMPS) that we are familiar with considered a technology of smart tires? Strictly speaking, it is not. The traditional TMPS monitoring principle relies on the ABS electronic system to monitor the tire's operating status: when a wheel starts to leak, its rolling radius will become smaller, and this change will be recognized. However, this is still a long way from the smart tires under the concept of "Internet +".

Why do we mention smart tires? When we drive cars daily, the potential safety hazards of tires may be ignored by many drivers. Even vehicles equipped with tire pressure monitoring cannot guarantee that there will be no problems with the tires. Because this passive detection has a slow response speed, it can only be used as a safety aid. Nowadays, some high-end models have active tire temperature and tire pressure monitoring systems that can provide tire conditions to the driver in real time. In the future, as self-driving cars gradually become popular, tires will need to tell the driving control computer their conditions more quickly, and tire pressure and temperature monitoring alone will naturally not be able to meet the requirements.

What is a smart tire? The core is the chip of the tire. In the future, the tire will be able to "communicate" with the vehicle and the driver, providing the vehicle with detailed data related to the basic status of the tire, mileage, and dynamic load, and notifying the vehicle of potential dangers in advance, such as a puddle of water on a dry asphalt road, or ice hidden in the middle of the snow. These sudden potential dangers will be monitored by the tire and then uploaded to your car and the surrounding cars that are about to pass by at lightning speed, reminding them to adjust the driving parameters to ensure safe passage.

For example, in the past, mobile phones were just hardware for making calls, but nowadays, intelligence has overturned the original attributes of mobile phones, and their value has shifted from the device itself to various applications and online services, making smartphones people's "life managers." Similarly, the smart tires of the future will not only be a rolling "rubber skin", but will be endowed with more and more functions.

■The transformation race has begun

Compared with hardware such as ADAS, mobile smart car machines, and smart rearview mirrors, tires are one of the parts with a relatively low level of intelligence on cars, but this also leaves enough room for imagination for tire manufacturers. There is no doubt that it is indeed very difficult for traditional tires to transform into smart connected products, but if tire manufacturers choose to avoid it, then "passive" tires will gradually be eliminated and even become low-profit waste. For tire manufacturers, there are only two choices: either be overturned or enter a new era. I believe no one wants to do the former.

This transformation race has already begun. Judging from the products announced by various tire manufacturers, to achieve the above technology, a sensor is generally implanted inside the tire so that it can measure the tire usage and road conditions.

"Just as smart bracelets can help humans monitor and track health data, smart connected tires with built-in sensors can track the tire's tread depth, temperature, pressure and wear status. These data can help significantly improve vehicle safety and extend the vehicle's service life as much as possible." Goodyear experts said when communicating with Autohome.

■ Feeding back data to users is not a one-time thing

It is understood that these smart connected tires have not yet been sold to consumers. It can be seen that the intelligent transformation of tires cannot be achieved overnight. It is not just adding some accessories with digital technology to the tires. It also needs to undergo more complex testing and inspection, and processing and managing all the generated data will also increase operating costs.

At present, many tire companies are working with automakers and start-ups to conduct extensive testing of smart connected tires. A week ago, Goodyear collected and analyzed a total of 3 million miles of smart connected tire road test data. Preliminary research shows that smart connected tires can reduce braking distance by up to 30%.

In the future, data will become an indispensable core asset of the automotive manufacturing industry, providing consumers with a safer driving experience. Goodyear revealed that its goal is to allow consumers to gradually use these smart connected tires by 2021.

At the same time, a large amount of data in smart tires needs to be transmitted outward at high speed, with a delay of less than 10 milliseconds. In December 2019, Pirelli demonstrated the "world's first 5G enhanced ADAS service (advanced driver assistance system)" case, which can transmit road information monitored by smart tires back through the 5G network. Pirelli explained that if the current 4G network is used, the response delay will greatly increase the transmission rate of information, and if the data is lost and retransmitted, the error rate will be 10,000 times higher than that of the 5G network. In the future, Pirelli hopes to place smart tires in a wider communication environment, including incorporating them into road traffic systems, to provide certain assistance for future travel and autonomous driving system solutions.

■Intelligence reshapes the tire business model

As mentioned earlier, software and digital technology will become the source and foundation of value creation for tires, but few companies can create smart connected products on their own. Therefore, the next trend is that tire manufacturers will enter the smart connected ecosystem.

This trend is even more obvious from the recent cooperation dynamics of tire manufacturers. For example, Linglong Tire signed a tripartite strategic cooperation agreement with Tencent Cloud and Huazhi Intelligent in December last year. Tencent Cloud and Huazhi Intelligent will provide Linglong Tire with technical and resource support in the fields of cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, collaborative office, Internet of Things, information security, etc., and ultimately build a digital, intelligent and global intelligent manufacturing system for Linglong Tire. In addition, Goodyear also revealed that it is working closely with some traditional and emerging companies in the field of intelligent networked tires.

The business model of tires is also quietly changing, which brings new opportunities for companies outside the tire industry to "make money." In December 2019, Tactile Mobility, an Israeli technology company invested by Porsche, reached a cooperation with digital map company HERE to commercialize the "tactile data" such as wheel speed and road conditions collected by Tactile Mobility on the HERE map application market. This solution can calculate valuable vehicle road dynamics information and generate actionable response plans by collecting non-visual data such as wheel speed and wheel angle. According to the content of the cooperation, Porsche will integrate relevant new technologies into its mass-produced models in the next ten years.

The market is full of challenges. In the smart interconnected ecosystem, the value chain of traditional tire manufacturers is constantly evolving. Take Michelin as an example. The company has been producing tires for the past 130 years and will soon achieve the result of saving 2.5L of diesel for each commercial vehicle running 100km. Michelin named this project "DubbedEffifuel". Sensors are installed on the tires and engines of commercial vehicles. The collected data such as fuel consumption, tire pressure, temperature, speed and location are transmitted to the cloud server. Michelin will analyze the data based on this and provide customers with advice and driving training. Obviously, this is by no means the business focus of tire manufacturers. It depends largely on technical means and cross-border cooperation to achieve it.