Last-mile delivery: Bridgestone considering van tyre retreading

Bridgestone Corporation is working to incorporate additional sustainability into its business model. Alongside plans to establish and build up a recycling business, retreading remains a key part of these efforts and features in the company’s plans to invest 700 billion yen (£4.6 billion) in strategic resources by 2023. To expand retreading activities, Bridgestone is looking at other segments besides commercial truck and OTR tyre retreading.

Within the company’s 2020-2021 Sustainability report, Paolo Ferrari comments that Bridgestone believes “retreading can be expanded to include tyres in fast-growing segments, such as last-mile delivery” in the future. Last-mile applications primarily utilise light commercial vehicles such as vans, and the market potential for retreading here is substantial; Amazon shows us what we can expect from this segment.

As part of its Climate Pledge, last year Amazon announced the ordering and supply of 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from US-based EV manufacturer Rivian by 2030. The first of these enter service this year, and by the end of 2022, the fleet will number 10,000. Rivian is currently investigating potential van production sites in Europe.

Detailed specifications are scant, but numerous sources state that Rivian is developing three sizes of vehicle. The smallest of these reportedly has a similar load capacity to models such as the Ford Transit, Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and VW Transit. Teaser photos released by Amazon last year show a vehicle that’s slightly larger, but nevertheless very much a van. The tyres it wears appear at any rate to be an LCV fitment. In the UK, Bridgestone offers its Duravis lines in sizes for 14- to 17-inch rim diameters, with the larger dimensions certainly suitable for such vehicles.