Leading global tyre manufacturer, Continental says that they have recognised the need to develop tyres for the electric urban buses which is a challenging field. To address this, Continental and electric bus manufacturer VDL Bus & Coach have partnered and gathered their expertise to jointly develop initial prototype tyres, which are currently being tested at Continental’s Contidrom proving grounds.
Continental says that it is not only the automobile manufacturers who needs to change their processes and method of operations in response to the rising demand of the electric vehicles. Tyre manufacturers also sees the necessity to come up with new concepts to accommodate the demand of the electric mobility.
“As with all electric vehicles, these bus tires are exposed to higher torque when moving off and accelerating,” explained Ben Hudson, automotive engineer at Continental Truck Tyres.
However, he noted that with tyres for electric urban buses, there are other considerations involved which is beyond what they have experienced with other EV projects: “In downtown traffic in particular, vehicles need to run very quietly, so that the comfort offered by quiet electric drive isn’t diminished by loud road-tyre noise.”
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In addition to all this, the deceleration of electric buses in urban traffic is a key factor in the energy recovery process. Consequently, tyres for electric buses have to cope with tougher requirements than their counterparts fitted to buses with combustion engines.
“At the same time, they need to deliver the same mileage and meet the same safety standards as bus tires for conventional drive systems,” added Hudson. “We are up against new requirements here, but obviously we’re not going to accept any compromises in terms of robustness or braking performance. Safety takes top priority for us.”
Continental says that currently, the tyres on the VDL vehicles at the Contidrom are built by Continental’s prototyping department in Hanover-Stöcken and feature hand-carved tread patterns. Hudson mentioned that it would take a minimum of 4 to 5 years to start mass production of the tyres since there would be differences in performance and design from what is seen in the initial protoype. For the e-bus tyres Continental aims to shorten that cycle.
“When developing this concept tire, we’re not restricted by what has gone before in previous generations of tyres,” says Hudson. “That gives us the freedom to try out entirely new concepts and ideas. If these prove successful, we’ll put them into practice very quickly and feed them into the development of the next line of tyres.”
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