Black Star launches “Leonard” range of retreads made in Bethune

Black Star, the car tyre retreading operation owned that took over the ex-Bridgestone Bethune new tyre factory, has launched its new range of retreaded car tyres called “Leonard”. Blackstar is run by iWip, the Mobivia subsidiary dedicated to the circular economy. Mobivia also owns the ATU autocentre chain in Germany as well as the Norauto garage business in France amongst other enterprises.

Once up to speed, Black Star aims to make 1 million Leonard tyres in Béthune a year. The 1 million figure represents an even bigger goal than then 900,000-unit annual production figures that have been mentioned in recent years and a significant increase on initial volumes of around 250,000 tyres a year.

The Leonard range was launched at the first edition of Drive to Zero Exhibition in Paris between 5 and 7 April. Black Star is betting on the future of reuse and promoting a multi-life tyre designed to offer “the lowest carbon footprint on the market”. Specifically, the reconditioned tyre saves 80 per cent of materials and up to 60 per cent less CO² during production than a new tyre.

Indeed, the casing alone, which normally consumes the most energy, represents 70 per cent of a tyre’s oil and 80 per cent of its weight (Study Cabinet ESPERE, 2022). As a result, Black Star claims that by buying four of its reconditioned tyres, you save 140 kg of CO² compared to buying new tyres. According to ADEME’s Impact CO² converter, that’s as many emissions as travelling 643 km by car, making 23 t-shirts or 4.5 smartphones.

And that all means that, once the Bethune factory is making 1 million tyres a year, 18,000 tonnes of CO² will be saved each year in the manufacturing process alone.

Why Leonard?

With a name like Black Star, you could be forgiven for thinking that Leonard is a reference to everyone’s favourite Vulcan – Star Trek’s Mr Spock, who was famously played by Leonard Nimoy. However, despite Spock being a member of the Vulcan race and vulcanisation being an integral part of tyre production, the truth is even more remarkable.

According to the company, “Black Star keeps the disruptive nature of its mission through the name of its new tyre: Leonard. With this first name, the goal is to create a closeness with the car driver and to make it easily remembered.” Furthermore, the name is not a reference to Star Trek, but rather to “the works of Leonardo da Vinci”.

Leonard’s performance is “comparable to that of a new tyre with the watchword: quality and safety”, Black Star reports. To this end, “Leonard tyres are tested through regulatory load/speed endurance tests and approved by RDW.” Performance tests strictly identical to those carried out on new tyres are carried out in order to guarantee the level of safety and performance of Leonard tyres. And that means: obstacle avoidance tests (VDA), braking on wet ground (from 80 km/h) and on dry ground (from 100 km/h) as well as a wear test (9,000 km).

The result is said to be that “Leonard offers improved grip, increased durability and optimum safety. It guarantees a low level of rolling resistance for lower fuel consumption and CO² emissions.”

Leonard tyres are available in four different profiles: the 4 Seasons for passenger cars and SUVs, the 4 Seasons for commercial vehicles as well as the Summer 01 and Summer 02 for passenger cars. The range is expected to 64 dimensions between 14 and 18 inches, which covers 70 per cent of the French market. As far as pricing is concerned, Leonard tyres will be positioned roughly 20 per cent lower than new tyres.

As far as distribution is concerned, it seems clear that Mobivia is planning to utilise its own extensive distribution network. As well as evidence of Black Star tyres for sale on the ATU website, back in 2020 Norauto reported that it had “teamed up” with Black Star to offer “100% made in France tyres” that are “composed of 80% recycled materials”.

Back in the present day, referring to the launch of Leonard, Laurent Cabassu, managing director of Black Star said: “For two years we worked to set up the project, transform the factory and develop our new product. Today the entire Black Star team and I are very proud to be able to present our new tyre “Made in Béthune” at the Drive to Zero exhibition. With Leonard, we have an immediately actionable and proven response to the environmental challenges of mobility. It’s a tyre serving a cause!”