My sole purpose for posting this is to raise awareness of the group to future new technology, so when our son's or daughter's say they bought new tires made from soybeans, dandelions or tomatoes, our jaws stay closed and we can say "that's old news!" (and for bonus points it's a National Security concern for the U.S.).
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Re: Tire Made From Plants
Interesting article- thanks for posting. However, what goes around comes around. Henry Ford experimented with making car parts from soybeans 100 years ago. He even made a plastic car body out of soybeans (too impractical, too expensive, and nobody would buy one). He had soybean fields near the Rouge plant in Dearborn. Can't say if tires was one of the experiments. I'm sure with current technologies far more could come of this but as they say "There is nothing new under the sun".
Jeff -
Mike
1965 Black Ext / Silver Int. Coupe, L84 Duntov, French Lick, 2023 - Triple Diamond
1965 Red Ext / White & Red Int. Conv. - 327/250 AC Regional Top Flight.Comment
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Re: Tire Made From Plants
Cool Beans, Chris
Great article...did not know "natural rubber" was classified as a strategic raw material.
And picking up on Jeff's Ford comments, Henry must have also thought it was strategic to his business, as he built rubber plantations in Brazil (Fordlandia and Belterra)
PS - and Ford was very good friends with Harvey Firestone. I wonder what Harvey thought when Henry did that ?
thx,
MarkComment
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Re: Tire Made From Plants
Referenced in Mark's link, the U.S., during WWII, was very concerned about the Japanese taking territory in Southeast Asia where some of the natural rubber came from. I agree, Henry Ford was a thinker and definitely thought "out of the box". Thanks for the links!Comment
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Re: Tire Made From Plants
Bill,
In my opinion, a few events, like the war in Ukraine, the supply chain shortages, the temporary shutdowns of large economies, and the uncertainty of future economic tensions, may have shifted the thought process for some of the decision makers to bring back the "Proudly made in USA" idea. Of course, this thinking only works if it is profitable for the companies to make it here and greed doesn't trump all the other variables. My wine glass is half full, so I'm optimistic about a change is coming.
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Re: Tire Made From Plants
We are all in this together 🛠😄Comment
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