Continental has developed a new concept tire containing around 43% recycled materials, highlighting how recycled and renewable resources could play a larger role in the future of tire manufacturing.
Developed as part of the EU-funded ZEvRA project, the concept tire is designed to demonstrate that sustainability and the demanding safety, efficiency and durability requirements of modern tires can work together. The two-year project, which concludes in 2026, focuses on improving the circular economy of electric vehicles across the entire value chain.
Continental is the only tire manufacturer participating in the ZEvRA consortium.
Tires are highly engineered products that combine numerous materials to deliver predictable performance, long service life and safety. That complexity makes increasing the use of recycled materials particularly challenging.
Continental’s ZEvRA concept tire addresses that challenge by incorporating approximately 43% recycled materials while achieving the highest rating in the EU tire label’s rolling-resistance category.
The materials used in the concept tire include: recycled tall oil, steel, rubber recovered from end-of-life tires, polyester fibers made from recycled PET bottles, recovered carbon black and recycled sand used to produce an alternative silica material.
The project demonstrates how materials that would otherwise become waste can be returned to the manufacturing cycle, reducing reliance on virgin raw materials.
Recycled Tires Could Become More Circular
One of the technologies being explored by Continental is pyrolysis, which can recover useful materials from end-of-life tires. Among them is recovered carbon black (rCB), which can be used as a raw material in new rubber products.
Continental has already moved recovered carbon black beyond the development stage. Since 2023, rCB has been used at the company’s Korbach facility in Germany for newly manufactured solid rubber tires, primarily used on forklift trucks.
Another example is recycled sand, or rSand. Sand residue generated during industrial foundry processes can be processed into an alternative silica material for tire production.
These approaches could help keep valuable materials in circulation while reducing demand for primary raw materials.
The Challenge Is Scaling Recycled Materials
The ZEvRA concept tire is more than a demonstration of what is technically possible. Continental says the project is also providing information that can help develop recycling technologies and materials for industrial-scale production.
One of the biggest challenges is the availability of suitable recycled materials in sufficient quantities. Recycling processes also need to become more consistent, scalable and economically viable before they can be used extensively across the tire industry.
Continental says clear and harmonized European rules will also be important. Standardized definitions for recycled materials and clear criteria for determining when processed substances qualify as recycled raw materials could give manufacturers greater certainty when investing in new technologies.
Reliable supply chains and internationally coordinated systems for tracking and allocating recycled materials will also be necessary as demand increases.
Continental Targets 40% Recycled and Renewable Materials by 2030
The ZEvRA concept tire builds on Continental’s existing efforts to increase the use of recycled and renewable materials.
Since 2022, the company has used polyester casings made from recycled PET bottles in selected passenger-car tires. In 2023, Continental introduced the UltraContact NXT, a production tire containing up to 65% renewable, recycled and mass-balance-certified materials.
Continental says that 28% of its purchased production materials in 2025 came from renewable and recycled sources. The company aims to increase that figure to at least 40% by 2030.
The ZEvRA project shows that recycled materials can already be incorporated into high-performance tires, but wider adoption will depend on more than technology alone. Greater availability of recycled feedstocks, standardized regulations and scalable industrial processes will be crucial to making more circular tire production commercially viable.
For electric vehicles in particular, where efficiency and sustainability are increasingly important considerations, advances in lower-impact tire manufacturing could become an important part of reducing the environmental footprint of the vehicle over its lifetime.
