Goodyear Wins Best Invention of the Year 2012

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s Air Maintenance Technology has been named one of Time magazine’s “Best Inventions of the Year 2012.”

Each year Time magazine’s technology editors list the year’s “most important innovations.” This year’s list includes 25 inventions, which in addition to Goodyear’s Air Maintenance Technology, includes NASA’s Z-1 space suit, the Tesla Model S electric car and indoor clouds.

Goodyear’s Air Maintenance Technology (AMT) will help ensure the optimum tire pressure is maintained and as a result, could mean substantial savings at the fuel pump. All of its components, including the miniaturized pump, will be fully contained within the tire.

“As soon as the pressure in these Goodyear tires gets too low, they know it,” the Time editors wrote about Goodyear’s AMT. “An internal pressure regulator opens to allow air to flow into a pumping tube, and as the wheel turns, the flattened part helps squeeze air from the tube through an inlet valve into the tire.”

“We are honored to be named as one of Time magazine’s ‘Best Inventions of the Year 2012,’ said Goodyear’s Chief Technical Officer Jean-Claude Kihn. “This award recognizes the outstanding work of our engineers in Akron and Luxembourg, as well as our efforts to bring innovative new products to market.

“A tire that can maintain its own inflation is something drivers have wanted for many years,” Kihn added. “This is the kind of technological breakthrough that people will recognize.”

Goodyear’s Air Maintenance Technology is currently under development by Goodyear in Akron and Luxembourg and is not yet available for purchase.

Time joins Popular Mechanics and Car & Driver magazines in recognizing Goodyear’s innovative Air Maintenance Technology. In October, Popular Mechanics named AMT a 2012 Breakthrough Award winner. In December 2011, Car & Driver selected AMT as one of its 10 “most promising future technologies.”

Credits: wilswong