The well-known tire company Goodyear Tire (NASDAQ: GT) unveiled a very interesting prototype at the Geneva Motor Show.

The concept behind this prototype — which is far from going into production — could radically change the way we view car tires and car travel in the future. This concept, named “BHO3” – offers the possibility of charging the batteries of electric cars by transforming the heat generated by the rolling tire into electrical energy. This means, that under certain conditions, the car’s tires could actually charge the batteries of the vehicle. While the whole technology is rather new, the concept sounds profoundly promising all together.

The role of the car tires has always been to provide the safety and performance by adding better traction. Tires also allow for a smoother ride and take the hard hits of variable driving conditions the cars may encounter. In a nutshell they are the contact surface that the car has with the road. On the other hand, the technology of the tires remained stagnant in a lot of ways. Now, with Goodyear releasing its concept tires, dedicated to charging electric vehicles, we might see a big shift of focus for this often neglected part of the automotive culture entirely.

“These concept tires re-imagine the role that tires may play in the future,” said Joe Zekoski, Goodyear’s senior vice president and Chief Technical Officer, in a statement. “We envision a future in which our products become more integrated with the vehicle and the consumer, more environmentally friendly and more versatile.”

These tires would generate electricity through the action of materials in the tires themselves, reacting to the driving surfaces it encounters. The energy is created by heat when it flexes as it rolls during normal driving conditions, creating energy that can be transformed from one state to another, providing electricity. The materials used would optimize the tire’s electricity generation capabilities as well as its rolling resistance.

While Goodyear hasn’t released that much information about this potential groundbreaking technology, it is easy to see how such a solution would benefit would be range anxious drivers and help their electric vehicles achieve better range as well. Take a look at the video we’ve added below to find out more about this revolutionary tire concept. We’re sure some high-profile car manufacturers will take a rather compelling interest in this technology as well.

Now the question is, can Goodyear make this 3D rendering a reality? Only time will tell.

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Tesla is probably one of the most unique companies in the world, time and time again they’ve proven to us that they simply aren’t what we think they are. First, everyone believed that they were a car company, but they proved that they were a technology company first and a car company second. And now, they’ve once again changed what we believe to be a technology company by freeing their patents and making them available to anyone that wishes to use them, in good will.

In a blog post titled, All Our Patents Are Belong To You (a play on the geeky “All Your Bases Are Belong to Us” Meme) Elon Mus, Telsa’s Founder and CEO, basically talks about how the company once had a wall of patents hanging in the halls of Tesla’s Headquarters in Palo Alto and that they have since been removed. He talks about how the company is doing this for the sake of the open source movement and the advancement of the electric car, and ultimately, the environment. This move is sure to worry investors of Tesla’s stock, who put part of their value in the company’s stock in all of the patents that it currently holds (or held?). Currently, based on how the stock performed yesterday and how its performing in pre-trading hours, the stock does not appear to be affected, yet.

Why? Because this is part of Tesla’s grander vision. They know that they can design and manufacture cars better than any of their competitors and just because their competitors have free access to their patents doesn’t mean that they can build better cars than Tesla. Additionally, and even more importantly, it will spur demand for Tesla’s battery technologies and the need to have them manufactured, you know maybe in some sort of a battery Gigafab? If anything, this will enable more companies to utilize different Tesla technologies and to bring more partners onboard to work with Tesla on improving the electric car industry.

It could also work in Tesla’s favor to promote their own proprietary technologies as standards since they don’t require any licensing. This would mean that people could build Tesla ‘superchargers’ into their charging stations and it would not only widen the network of chargers across the world, but it would also improve the value of owning a Tesla.

There’s no denying that this move is a risky one, but I believe that ultimately it is a very smart one and it helps solve Tesla’s problem of not having enough demand to build a battery Gigafab and make it profitable. After all, Tesla sees themselves as a battery technology company first and foremost, not a car company. So, this is clearly in line with their long term strategy.

This could also encourage current or future partners to want to work with Tesla to build batteries since they won’t have to pay for licensing the technology. Maybe Toyota will rethink moving to hydrogen fuel cell and move back to using battery based electric vehicles. Some may worry about how Tesla’s current partnerships may suffer from these developments, but the truth is that most of them are buying batteries directly from Tesla, which means that there isn’t really much licensing revenue that Tesla has to worry about losing, which may also have been a factor in the decision.

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Toyota has announced that they would be moving away from Tesla’s battery technology, which they were originally one of the first supporters in Tesla’s battery technology and took a 3% share (worth about $690 million) of the company in addition to adopting their battery technology. Keep in mind that currently, Tesla manufactures battery technology for Toyota and Mercedes and is in the process of building a $5 billion gigafab in order to increase their battery capacity. So, while Tesla is looking to expand their battery manufacturing capacity, one of their closest partners is moving away from Tesla’s tech.

Toyota is claiming that they are moving towards a new alternative energy standard which has long been considered to be less feasible than electric power, hydrogen fuel cell. Companies like Honda and Toyota have been toying with hydrogen fuel cell and electric car technology for the past few decades with a few prototypes here and there, but ultimately little to no commercial traction. However, it seems like Toyota isn’t particularly interested in the current model with electric cars where new charging stations need to be installed at users’ homes, work and places that they go. Toyota appears to be more interested in the ‘gas station’ model where people would simply refuel with hydrogen rather than waiting for a charge. So, Toyota recently created the FCV Concept which was announced at CES and ultimately showed where Toyota had been looking to move for 2014 and beyond.

Toyota FCV Concept

While I don’t think anyone can definitively say whether or not Toyota’s decision to move away from Tesla’s battery technology is necessarily a good one, Toyota is still the #1 seller of hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles and that’s still a whole lot of batteries that need installing. I personally understand why someone would look at electric cars as not-so-green technology considering the amount of energy necessary to create those batteries and the source of a lot of the power that charges them. However, I believe that we may ultimately see a combination of hydrogen fuel cell technologies alongside electric car technologies much like we have diesel and gasoline engines which ultimately are both combustion engines but they accomplish combustion via different types of fuel.

Hopefully this isn’t too much of a blow for Tesla, with Toyota moving away from their battery tech. Perhaps once Tesla launches a more affordable electric car and the Model X they will be able to spur enough battery demand on their own so that companies like Toyota aren’t as critical to them anymore.

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Teledyne Dalsa cameras incorporate CMOS technology for high speed, high resolution imaging.

VUE comes with custom built propulsion and battery management systems. The car has a fully digital instrument cluster, and vehicle diagnostic display. The HMIs include information from the car’s radar system which provides information for the driver.

The Driver’s Vue … uh View

The infotainment system is based on the QNX Neutrino Realtime Operating system a true microkernel operating system. QNX promises that virtually any component can fail — and be automatically restarted — without affecting other components or the kernel. Their graphics technology allows images from video, OpenGL ES, HTML5, and Qt 5 on a single display.

Jin Xu of QNX said: “The VUE project car offers a preview of what is possible in terms of autonomous driving and connectivity and demonstrates the value of supporting educational programs with state-of-the-art software tools. We are proud to support them with QNX OS technology, tools, and training.“ 

Components are neatly packaged in the rear of the car

The car contains two electric motors and a 12 volt battery to power the accessories. The vehicle weighs 1,741 pounds, has a 77 inch wheelbase, 98.4 inches in overall length, and is 56.6 inches wide. The lightweight, small vehicle lends itself to electric mobility with a 45km range in city driving.


Alexandre Imbeault, a university student on the VUE project, was showing their project off at CES 2014

VUE had several sponsors based around the world. B3CG Interconnect, outside Montreal Canada and Plattsburgh, New York, manufactures cable, harnesses and electrical mechanical assembly; Phoenix Connect, based in Bloomberg, Germany prides itself on design solutions for the future using trend-setting connection and automation technology. They are active in the field of renewable energies in infrastructure or for complex device connection. Elektrobit is based in Finland.

Future goals are to include voice controls via EB GUIDE Speech Target Framework and EB Navigation integration. 

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