Goodyear has been provoking thoughts for the future of transport at the Geneva Motor Show for a number of years with their intriguing and crazy ideas. They are back again this year with a photosynthesizing tire, Oxygene, that is hiding living moss inside the sidewall to clean the surrounding air as the car moves along.
The Oxygene tire will harvest energy through the process of photosynthesis, inhaling CO2 from the air and moisture from the road. This feeds the living moss inside the sidewall and releases oxygen into the air. To give an example, the city of Paris has roughly 2.5 million vehicles on the road and if this concept is adopted all over the city, it would mean the creation of 3,000 tons of oxygen and soaking up more than 4,000 tons of CO2 annually.
That is not all. The energy generated during photosynthesis will be used to power electronics inside the car, a safety light, and an artificial intelligence processing unit. It will also use Li-Fi to connect to the Internet of Thing to communicate with other cars and the road infrastructure.
The concept is intriguing and sounds too good to be true. Maybe because it is. The technology cannot make it to the road in its current state and scientists are trying to generate meaningful amounts of energy from artificial photosynthesis. If it does come to fruiting someday, it will be a huge step towards cleaning the air.
You can check out the promo video below:
