Box-Shaped Device That Sucks Up Tire Pieces Can Finally Make Cars Emissions-Free

Electric vehicles may seem like a suitable solution to the traditional gas-powered car. However, they aren’t without their own vices.

Tires on EVs, unfortunately, still produce emissions, which in turn makes zero-emissions cars not truly emissions-free. Thankfully, a London-based startup called The Tyre Collective may have found a way to cut down on this unseen pollution.

As vehicles drive along roads, tiny bits of the wheels pill and scatter over the asphalt. To add to this, the main ingredient in rubber tires isn’t even rubber. Instead, it’s a concoction of harmful substances that are mixed together to create the material. As the tires shed on the road, these little pieces will ultimately find their way into waterways, soil, and the air around us.

A road test conducted by the research organization Emissions Analytics showed that a gas-powered car sheds 73 milligrams of tires per 0.6 miles, while an EV sheds 15 milligrams more for the same distance. This is due to the fact that electric cars often weigh more than traditional cars do thanks to their batteries.

So how do we get rid of it? Well, The Tyre Collective has developed a device—which does not have a name yet, though its co-founder Hanson Cheng refers to it as the “box”—in the shape of a cube that can be attached to the back of electric automobiles. The box uses electrostatic plates to attract the shredded pieces of rubber from the tire.

When tested in a lab, it was able to pull in 60% of tire runoff. However, real-world experimentation has shown that there are many challenges that the device still faces. The startup has placed the box on two delivery vans that are making their way around London and has found that a fifth of the emissions is being collected.

Once the boxes are filled with tiny pieces of tires, they are meant to be emptied out at collection points to be turned into new rims or even soles for shoes.

For so long, toxic exhaust fumes have overshadowed the problem created by wheels. Rubber tires have been found to be the second leading source of microplastic pollution, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. An innovation that focuses on the lesser-known side has been a long time coming.

[via Bloomberg and TechStory, cover image via The Tyre Collective]