Blackcircles Launches Green Tyre Made from Renewable Materials

In 2022 we set ourselves a challenge. How can we take our love for car tyres and turn it towards helping the environment?

While sitting at his family dinner table one of our team members was mulling this challenge over. As he looked down at this dinner he was struck with inspiration, not unlike Archimedes in his bath tub.

What if you could grow a tyre?! This is where the journey begins.

We pulled together a team of the brightest minds in the country to take on the challenge of growing a tyre and ultimately arrived at the only real answer there ever could be. The humble potato.

Potatoes were introduced to Europe from the Americas in the second half of the 16th century by the Spanish and have long since been a popular item on the British menu.

In steps Angus. Angus McDonald is Blackcircles resident potato aficionado and now the key supplier of the potatoes we use to produce our tyre. His spuds are just the right level of starch, sugar and general robustness that makes our greener tyre what it is today!

Angus said when asked about the project – “It was a very appealing prospect when I was asked to get my hands dirty and grow the supply for, what is in my opinion, the most important technological advancement in the motoring industry since Henry Ford kicked it all off!”

While finding the right produce was always going to be the starting point - how we take a mish mash of science and engineering to turn these into a truly excellent tyre was the biggest challenge. This job lay with the Blackcircles team of expert scientists.

After some half baked ideas that ultimately left our office a bit of a mess, the team finally cracked it!

Bringing together a wide variety of different methods, the team slowly chipped away at the problem and eventually boiled everything down to one solution.

The secret is in the temperature and moisture levels of the potato mix that are essential to creating the ultimate green tyre.

We developed a specific machine - similar to an air fryer - that creates the perfect consistency of our potato mix before it is pressed into moulds.

The top section of an RostiSpinner ™ holds a heating mechanism and fan. You place the food in a large basket and when you turn it on, hot air rushes down and around the potato. The perfectly cooked product is then pressed into moulds with special wedges designed to give you the best grip on the road.

When looking back at our years of success chief scientist Dr. Brenda Frites said  - “This is the pinnacle of my career. To be able to take such a versatile starch from the family dinner table to open road is my crowning achievement.”

Blackcircles plans to launch the SpudRunner shortly after harvest season later this year - ready for those crisp winter months. Check back soon for launch details!