The demonstrator, located at Michelin’s plant in the commune of Bassens, is tooled to produce butadiene, an organic compound of hydrogen and carbon, from ethanol derived from biomass.

Solutrans 2023 was held between 21-25 November at Eurexpo in Lyon, France. Over 1,000 exhibitors and 50,000 guests gathered for the 17th edition of this historic show, centred around the European heavy and light commercial vehicle industry.

The two sites set to close are the tyre plants located in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg and Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate.

It is a 26,000-square-metre facility capable of producing up to 16,000 units per year; following a planned expansion to 40,000 square metres, it will be capable of producing 50,000 units.

Through Connected Mobility, customers can procure new tyres, access services to maintain and optimise their tyres, and make use of digital tools such as fleet management and tyre pressure monitoring.

This year, the Michelin Group is celebrating an important milestone in its long history of motor tyre manufacturing. In 1923, the French company developed a method for applying a new tread to old tyres, thus extending their useful life. One hundred years later, Michelin Tyre Plc commemorated the anniversary at the ‘Michelin Remix’ factory in Stoke-on-Trent, UK, where the company has been retreading truck and bus tyres since 1968.

Continental has sold its Kaluga plant in Russia to S8 Capital, whilst Michelin has signed an agreement to sell two of its local companies, Michelin Russia Tyre Manufacturing Company and Camso CIS, to Power International Tires, one of Russia’s main tyre distributors.

The joint venture’s first facility will be located in Uddevalla, Sweden - once fully operational, it will recycle 34,500 tons of used tyres, which is reportedly equal to 40% of Sweden’s annual tyre waste volume.

Watèa was created by Michelin in 2021 to offer an LCV subscription service, helping clients with procuring vehicles and charging infrastructure and providing them with digital services.

The bus tyre, 58% of which is made out of sustainable materials, was displayed as an illustration of Michelin’s commitment to replacing its current tyres with 100% sustainable ones by 2050.

The ‘Zero Emission Mobility Innovation Fund’ is targeted at manufacturers who are based in or operating in Scotland and are conducting research and development into or trialling new zero-emission technologies.

Roadbotics primarily advises local authorities on road maintenance by identifying priority areas of concern with its AI technology, which employs machine-learning to analyse images of roads taken from cameras.