Bridgestone, a global tyres and rubber company, and California-based EV maker, Fisker are partnering up to advance their goals for sustainable mobility solutions. Fisker has selected Bridgestone as the exclusive tyre partner for its Fisker Ocean all-electric SUV, which will debut at an upcoming auto show in Los Angeles. Production of the electric SUV will start in mid-November, 2022.
Related: Bridgestone Americas to push mobility solutions business with Azuga acquisition
The Fisker Ocean features extensive use of recycled materials, including a fully vegan interior, and will come with an optional photovoltaic solar roof. It will also be fitted with custom-developed Bridgestone Potenza Sport tyres for vehicles sold in Europe and select models sold in North America. According to Bridgestone the bespoke sport tyres are engineered for low rolling resistance, which conserves the Fisker Ocean’s battery energy by ensuring that less power is required to move the vehicle’s tyres.
The custom-engineered tyre hedges on Bridgestone’s revolutionary, sustainable Enliten technology, which, on average, reduces the rolling resistance of a tyre by up to 30% and its weight by up to 20%. This equates to up to 2 kg fewer raw material resources required to produce every tyre.
Bridgestone will also supply custom-designed Alenza Sport all season tyres for Fisker Ocean models sold in North America. The Alenza tyres are engineered with a next-generation compound that provides enhanced dry braking, wet handling and improved rolling resistance.
The Fisker Ocean’s custom-made Bridgestone tyres will benefit from Bridgestone’s ground-breaking Virtual Tire Development technology, which enables the accurate prediction of a tyre’s performance without producing and physically driving it for the first part of the development process. Making tyre development more sustainable, efficient, accurate and flexible, Virtual Tire Development reduces raw material consumption and CO2 emissions by approximately 60%, and the product development time and speed to market by up to 50%. The planned use of the technology in this project is said to support the Fisker Ocean’s ambitions to be the world’s most sustainable vehicle and will help to accelerate the project’s development time.
Prototype testing of the Fisker Ocean will start during Q4 2021.