There is an airship in the world, with a yellow and blue hull, accompanied by "Goodyear" and "Flying Feet" patterns. There is also the rubber company Goodyear, named after the ancestor of the industry, and regards the airship as its mascot. Legend has it that every time Goodyear's "big? News" is born, it will summon an airship, and the airship will hover, which is a good omen.

In 2020, the Goodyear airship will appear again. Although the tires are simple and unpretentious, this year's Goodyear is not low-key. On March 3rd, Goodyear released a concept tire specially designed for future electric vehicles - reCharge? New concept tire. This product's The two key words are personalization and sustainability.

Personalization As the name suggests, the tire surface uses a self-loading, biodegradable tread formula that can be refreshed at will through independent capsules. The capsule is filled with a customizable liquid formula. According to different weather, road conditions and driving styles, the liquid tread formula can be customized based on artificial intelligence technology to create exclusive tires for car users. The tread is made from biomaterials, with reinforcements inspired by spider silk, a natural material with strong toughness. As a result, this formula is not only durable but also 100% biodegradable.

As early as the CES at the beginning of the year, Goodyear started with a "small goal" and established the Goodyear Ventures venture capital fund, which plans to invest in the travel field. 1 billion to drive the development of future mobility solutions.

Goodyear Ventures will focus on the following eight themes to define the future of mobility: Electrification and autonomous driving technology Intelligent connected mobility solutions Next generation public transportation Next generation air travel Future transportation infrastructure Future mobility Tool maintenance and operation Emerging technologies New tire materials

In addition to investing money in the travel field, Goodyear has also established a fleet service platform-AndGo. It can be seen from the feedback trends at this year's CES that both car companies and parts suppliers are rushing into the field of urban travel. If good tire manufacturers are not doing it, how come Goodyear has also started to develop travel concepts? ? This may be the sense of smell of a century-old enterprise, and it is also an industry responsibility.

"Protect?our?good?name" is the warning printed on the wall of Goodyear Company. One hundred and twenty years ago, when Frank Siebel decided to register the company with Goodyear's name, he may have been wondering whether he had enough ability to make the company bigger and stronger, and he would not let Goodyear's name be used. desecrated.

The Goodyear Company was born almost at the same time as the modern automobile. It experienced two wars and became an important member of the automobile industry. As the Internet and electrification take hold today, how will Goodyear embrace the future of the automotive industry? Judging from the concept products in recent years, Goodyear's innovative concepts have always centered on the idea of ??sustainable development, energy-saving travel methods and a distinctive corporate culture.

Tires that "breathe"

Terms such as "artificial meat" and "vegetarian meat" are challenging the upper limit of people's acceptance. If one day you see the topic of "plant car" while browsing the hot search, don't be too surprised, let alone think that cars have returned to the retro style of the 1940s, because of the research on using biological products to replace traditional industrial raw materials. It is developing rapidly.

Using rice husks to extract silica and soybean oil instead of petroleum to make tire tread rubber are the projects Goodyear is currently researching. As early as the 2018 Geneva Motor Show, Goodyear released a "breathing" tire-Oxygene.

The live moss attached to the sidewall is the biggest feature of this concept tire. This open structure and the unique sidewall design of the tire can absorb water from the road and use photosynthesis to release oxygen. Oxygene? can also collect the energy generated by the photosynthesis process to supply the electronic units inside, including on-board sensors, artificial intelligence processing units and luminous sidewalls. The luminous sidewalls are used to prompt road users to change lanes or brake information.

In addition, in Goodyear's concept, Oxygene can be manufactured using old rubber powder through 3D printing. This is also the first product after Goodyear implements the concept of sustainable development.

Electrified tires

When cars fully embrace electrification, Goodyear found that traditional tires wear 30% faster on electric cars than on ordinary cars. This is mainly because Due to the powerful instant torque of electric vehicles and the extra weight brought by the heavy battery pack. So at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show, Goodyear launched a tire more suitable for electric vehicle assembly.

Low rolling resistance design helps improve cruising range. The special tread texture treatment allows Goodyear's electric vehicle-specific tires to have a larger radial contact area on the road than traditional tires. As a result, the tires can better cope with strong torque and ensure performance in wet conditions.

Various combinations of magnetic levitation and tires

As the hottest technology in the travel field, magnetic levitation is also a key research object of Goodyear. The technology types are mainly divided into two types: tires There are magnetic levitation supports and magnetic levitation vehicle tires between the car and the car.

At the 2016 Geneva Motor Show, Goodyear demonstrated the innovative Eagle-360 concept tire. The connection method between this spherical tire and the car body based on 3D printing technology is magnetic levitation. The wheels are hung on the car body by the magnetic field, which meets the needs of spherical tires and saves the suspension structure. Spherical tires can move in all directions, making them a boon for those who have difficulty parking on the side.

At the 2019 Geneva Motor Show, the product Goodyear brought was AERO, a tire for maglev flying cars. The tire strips with a turbofan-like design can provide lift and propulsion to the vehicle, and the strip-type design can also support the tires to travel on the ground, similar to the tires used on Mobike bicycles that do not need to be inflated.

The “out of the circle” tire giant and its legendary story

Spending US$100 million to enter new travel fields and making efforts in bioenergy and magnetic levitation, Goodyear has The research projects are becoming more and more "out of the circle", but this is also the most distinctive feature of Goodyear's corporate culture. If you review the development history of Goodyear, you will actually find that everything from daily necessities to the defense industry is within the scope of Goodyear's capabilities. It is like the Porsche 911 in the automotive industry. It can go out to buy groceries at the bottom, and it can drive tens of millions of dollars in supercars. Knocked off the horse. This sounds much more exciting than a cross-border cross-border venture by a tire company, and the beginning of all this "out of the circle" starts with the incredible "Feizu" trademark.

Goodyear started out with car tires and also does other rubber-related businesses. In 1901, they registered the Wingfoot trademark, which had been in use for 120 years, and registered the company name with the name of Charles Goodyear, the originator of the rubber industry. It seems that Americans also pay attention to their ancestors.

However, many people will wonder why tire manufacturers use shoes to make logos. At this time, don’t confuse them with the “Goodyear Work Shoes” recommended every day on Taobao.

The reason why they are called Goodyear work shoes comes from a technology called "Goodyear welt structure shoemaking". The inventor of this technology is Charles Goodyear's son, Charles Jr. Goodyear. Although this shoemaking method is widely spread, it has nothing to do with the Goodyear Rubber Company.

The flying feet in the Goodyear Logo come from the flying shoes on the feet of Mercury in Roman mythology. The reason why the element of Mercury is used in the trademark is because it was the "business of commerce" in Roman mythology. image of God.

When Frank Siebering had everything ready, he thought his business would flourish and grow every day. Who would have thought that he would encounter a fork in the road after just two steps? Whether to be conservative in making carriage tires, or to go out of the comfort zone and choose the automotive field where nothing is certain. In the 1980s, ABC (American Broadcasting Company) was looking down on the Internet, which shows that not everyone is full of expectations for the products of the new era. After a dispute between Sebring and the company's top management, Goodyear finally officially became an automobile tire manufacturer in 1905.

In the first 5 years after entering the field of automobile tires, Goodyear only engaged in retail business. However, the automobile market at that time was a mixed bag, and competition from electric vehicles, internal combustion locomotives, and steam locomotives made the industry lack a main line of development. However, Siebering was still full of hope for automobiles. In 1905, Goodyear launched quick-release tires and placed advertisements in major national newspapers. They are waiting for the right person, the right car company to appear.

Facts have proved that no industry will develop haphazardly, and there will always be capable people who become the rule makers.

History has told us that Henry Ford's assembly line saved the "premature" automobile industry. In 1907, Goodyear opened its store in Detroit because the first Ford Model T produced on the assembly line gave them an order for 1,200 sets of tires.

By 1910 Goodyear supplied one-third of the tires for the U.S. automobile market. In the same year, Ford's output of model t was 19,050 units. In the following years, as the assembly line gradually matured, the price of model t dropped again and again, from 900 US dollars to less than 500 US dollars. , sales volume soared like a "cheating", exceeding the 200,000 mark in 1914.

「More?people?ride?on?Goodyear?tires?than?on?any?other?kind」

More people use Goodyear tires than any other brand< /p>

As demand increased, Goodyear's production capacity also increased, from 250 cars per day in the early days to 4,000 cars per day in 1916. In the same year, Goodyear issued an unruly poster telling the world who was the real boss in the tire industry.

Magical Realism Airship Troops

The world at the beginning of the twentieth century had a lot of competition, ranging from countries, political powers, territories to energy methods of transportation. Goodyear doesn't care about which one is the future direction, fuel vehicles or electric vehicles, because no matter which form of energy is inseparable from tires. In addition to competition on the ground, there are also discordant factors in the sky.

In 1912, Wilbur, one of the Wright brothers, died of illness, and Goodyear built their first airship. At that time, airship manufacturers and aircraft fans were locked in a fierce battle for future sovereignty of the skies. Goodyear is obviously the smartest company among them. In addition to producing airships, they also established the Goodyear Aircraft Company and even started the aircraft parts business.

(What was towed was a Goodyear aircraft tire)

In the era when Zeppelin rigid airships were famous far and wide, Goodyear relied on its long-term accumulation in the rubber industry to conquer the craft of soft airships. Difficulties, a structure more advanced than a rigid airship, even attracted cooperation orders from Zeppelin. After World War I, Goodyear and Zeppelin built the world's largest airship hangar in Akron, USA, and jointly produced civilian transport airships.

When people clearly understood airships and airplanes, they found that the development of airships was restricted by the upper limit of structure and purpose. After the aircraft technology became proficient, airships were used more for long-distance passenger travel, or it can be understood as " "Sky Yacht", its luxurious interior, spacious space and comfort are unmatched by airplanes.

The Hindenburg, the largest object in the sky in the 1930s, carried all Zeppelin's dreams of luxury airships. But unfortunately, Hindenburg ultimately became the final chapter of the "Ship-Aircraft War". The huge and hydrogen-filled hull made it like a mobile bomb. In May 1937, it crossed the Atlantic for the first time and burned and crashed while preparing to land over New Jersey.

The Hindenburg incident undoubtedly added fuel to the marginalized airship industry. However, there was one person who did not believe in evil. He was the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet during World War II—Chester William Nimitz. Nimitz, who took office quickly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, made two decisions that ordinary people cannot understand: 1. Still reusing the naval intelligence department that made mistakes? 2. Using airships to guard the coastal waters.

Making the best use of everything was Nimitz's creed. At least he was not wrong about the airship. The United States has unique advantages in manufacturing airships. North America has a stable crust, which is conducive to the formation of helium fields. Helium has the same low-density advantage as hydrogen but is less flammable. Helium in the United States is not exported to the outside world, and helium on the international market is quite expensive. This is why Zeppelin does not use helium, but Goodyear enjoys a unique advantage.

The speed factor in peacetime

After World War II, Goodyear returned to its role as a tire supplier. Until the 1960s, the technological explosion in the automotive field made motor sports very popular. The pursuit of speed has also become a battlefield between major tire brands, because nothing can bring traffic more than competition at that time.

Even though it ranks first in sales in the world, Goodyear still hopes to portray a "geek" image in the minds of consumers, so they also participate in the speed competition. Goodyear invested in two high-speed tanks at that time, one was the "Spirit of America" ??and the other was the "Flying Express".

The slogan "go! go! Goodyear" came from 1963, the same year that Goodyear set the first speed record in the 1960s. The "Spirit of America" ??racing car broke the record at the time with a top speed of 407.447 miles per hour. Goodyear was not only a sponsor, but also provided the racing car's high-strength, ultra-lightweight aluminum wheels and tires.

The following year, "Flying Foot Express" broke the record set by "American Spirit", with a top speed of 413.199 miles per hour. Art Alphonse, the creator of the extreme "Flying Express", was not satisfied, so he created "Flying Express No. 2". Car No. 2's engine is a rocket booster with a top speed of nearly 600 miles per hour.

I believe many people have watched "The King of Speed". In the movie, Bruce McLaren and teammate Chris Amon drove a Ford GT40 and won the 1966 Le Mans. The winner of the 24-hour endurance race. History is indeed the same, and the hero behind helping the GT40 complete high-intensity races is Goodyear tires.

Since the 1990s, Goodyear has become the only designated racing tire for NASCAR, an ancient American race. Over the past sixty years, Goodyear's tires have appeared in countless international events and have gradually become a key factor for manufacturers to unlock the speed limit.

Looking forward to tomorrow

Even if the Internet wave wipes out traditional industries, Goodyear should be confident, but it is not satisfied with the status quo with its "ancestral halo". It can be seen from this year's CES and Geneva Online Auto Show that Goodyear's industrial form will be more diversified in the future, and the future travel field will be a concentrated investment point. What travel concepts will inspire the new era with the investment of 100 million "small goals"? Let's wait and see.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.