Autoblog

Click image for high res gallery of the competitors.

Michelin hosts its annual Michelin Challenge Design (design challenge?) to help young designers and their hot designs get some recognition. The emphasis is on innovative thinking, both on the technical and style side. While the challenge doesn't have any direct link to tires, per se, Michelin uses the forum to help push the boundaries throughout the automotive field and get people thinking outside the box. The NAIAS contest focuses on making "smaller vehicles safer particularly in urban environments." One can make the argument that producing smaller, more efficient cars has a direct impact on tire design and tread wear, but we hardly care about Michelin's motivation here and just enjoy looking at futuristic concepts. This year's entries ranged from the practically plausible to way-out-there wild as you'll see in our gallery below.

The full press release and the winners in each of the two categories Michelin recognized are posted after the jump.

[Source: Michelin]

Click image for a high-res gallery of Michelin booth pics by Drew Phillips

At last year's SEMA show, one of our favorite booths by far was the one from Michelin, which brought together the world's fastest supercars for one massive display of speed. We eagerly anticipated what they had in store for us this year, and we headed straight for it. It would have been virtually impossible for Michelin to top itself, but they sure made a stab at it. While last year focused on production cars, the display this year was broadened to feature tuner cars as well as race cars. Taking the unique approach of having a production model, tuner version and race car from three prominent manufacturers, Michelin showed us that they build a tire for all sectors of the automotive kingdom. While we were particularly fond of the Audi R8 by APR, there was also a Champion Motorsport F77 Turbo and out back a Lingenfelter Corvette sporting 1,100 HP. Race cars included the R10 from Audi, an RS Spyder from Porsche, and a Corvette C6.R as well. While a production R8 and GT3 RS represented the stock crowd for the German marques, the Corvette slot was left suspiciously vacant, perhaps giving us a preview of what shoes the ZR1 might be donning for its debut. Nice follow-up, Michelin.

Michelin has created a new tire as part of the development of the Peugeot 308. The Energy Saver uses a specially-developed rubber composite, and Michelin claims the tire reduces rolling resistance by 20% in both 15- and 16-inch sizes. Tire testing was carried out by TÜV SÜD Automotive, which measured the Michelin's performance to that of the top six competitor tires. The Energy Saver is also said to have the same durability as Michelin's other tires.

The tire will come standard on two 308 models, the 90 HDI and the 110 HDI 308s, both high mileage diesels, and Peugeot will be the exclusive maker to use it until February 2008. In addition to the gas savings because of its lower rolling resistance, the tire is also said to lower a car's CO2 emissions by 4g per kilometer. We'll find out soon enough if the claims have real-world merit -- and real world savings -- but we welcome all such efforts where the rubber meets the road.

[Source: Michelin]

Michelin says there are two touring-tire-buying camps. One drives BMWs and Audis and goes shopping for performance touring tires. The other group drives Camrys and Accords and is somewhat surprised to learn they'll be shopping for more expensive performance tires. The tire company hopes to capture a big slice of the second group with its new Primacy MXV4

Michelin says this new tire not only provides the performance enthusiasts demand, but also gives casual drivers the comfort they want along with a 60,000 mile warranty.

To show off the MXV4, Michelin invited Autoblog to Barber Motorsports in Birmingham, Ala. to see for ourselves how it performed.

Continued after the jump.

Also, check out the gallery of photos from the event.

The French military may not be fighting in Iraq, but their tires are: Michelin just landed an exclusive $1.7 billion contract with the US Department of Defense to supply the American military behemoth with tires. For the next ten years (at least), every vehicle in the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps deployed around the world will be shod in Michelin rubber.

This isn't the first Pentagon contract Michelin has won, either. The French tire company previously won a contract worth $700 million to supply the tires for all US warplanes. In order to meet the enormous supply demands of the US military, Michelin has invested a reported $16 million. For the sake of our brave boys and girls serving overseas, let's hope the French tires don't throw up their arms and surrender at the first time of trouble. (No whitewalls, please.)

[Source: F1i.com]

Volvo has long tried to be good environmental stewards. Even before its revolutionary Lambda-Sond system in the late 1970s, the Gothenburg-based automaker had been making efforts to tread lightly. Now comes word that Volvo has developed a hybrid version of the C30 hatchback. The drive system is reportedly a series hybrid, with the batteries being charged on the go by a diesel powerplant. There's plug-in charging capabilities, as well. The batteries alone can provide motive power for about 45 miles before the generator awakes. The electrified C30 will be part of the Michelin Challenge Bibendum, where engineers will presumably be trying to break stuff so that any production version has well-vetted hardware. No details are available about whether the hybrid hardware was developed in-house by Volvo or bequeathed by parent Ford, which developed a similar series hybrid drivetrain with a hydrogen fuel-cell generator for the Airstream Concept that debuted at the Detroit Auto Show this year.

[Source: Autobild - in German]

AutoblogGreen just ran a story we wanted to make sure all of our readers were aware of, so we're running it here, too. It looks like the days of hybrids being seen by some people as pure exercises in extended fuel economy are numbered. Maybe someday soon people will start to associate fuel-cell hybrids with high performance and even, dare we say it, racing.

It seems that hybrids will be hitting the track soon. A new racing series run by the recently founded Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation was announced on Wednesday. The series hopes to stage its first races by 2009. As you may have guessed, the cars in this series will be electric hybrids powered by hydrogen.

Autoextremist founder/publisher Peter M. DeLorenzo is the President and CEO of the new organization. And this isn't some rinky-dink egghead endeavor, either. Executives from Bridgestone-Firestone and Michelin, Indy Car's own Tony George, and Scott Atherton, President and CEO of the American Le Mans Series are behind this new series. It looks like a pretty powerful group. At the center of the series will be the Hydrogen 500. Click over to AB Green for the rest of the story and additional links. We'll certainly keep you posted as more info becomes available.

[Source: AB Green]

They're going to have to change the name of this thing to NCC-1701, because piloting it will definitely make you feel like you're boldly going where no one's gone before. As part of the Michelin Design Challenge competition, Volvo has revised the design of the the traditional big-rig tractor. Serious thought was given to improving driver safety and some semi-radical changes to convention were made. The driver is front and center in the cab, just like F1 cars. The central seating position gives an expansive 180 degree field of vision; Volvo calls it the Full View Driver Position. There are blind spot cameras, as well as sensors to detect other vehicles, lane tracking, and driver alertness. The doors open by sliding, rather than flapping out into traffic, and a set of steps comes out from hiding, allowing ease of ingress. The seat motors back and rotates toward the opened door, making the driver feel like a transportation deity.

More after the jump.

[Source: dexigner.com]

Michelin is our favorite tire company from now on. Without resorting to the cheap, albeit highly effective and entertaining, trick of hiring booth babes to draw attention to themselves, this French tiremaker still had one of the largest crowds of any vendor at the show. Accomplished with an elegant simplicity that had us drooling from the moment we saw the space. The plan was so breathtakingly simple that we hope others will follow their lead in the future. OK, we wouldn't complain too much if there were still some lovely ladies around as well, but this being an automotive show, putting cars above all else seems to be a pretty good idea.

What they pulled off went a little beyond the ordinary and deserves some kind of award. After working your way past dozens of individual wheel and tire booths with everything from clear rims to those 34-inch monster truck-worthy numbers, you round a corner in the tires and wheels hall and see one of the cleanest, most spectacular sights. Especially if you are a fan of exotics and supercars, but even if you're not, it's quite striking. More story and pics after the jump.

Pierre DuPasquier, who retired (pun intended) as Michelin's racing chief at the end of the 2005 season, will be awarded the French Legion d'Honneur in December for his immeasurable contribution to French motorsport.

DuPasquier started his career as a fighter pilot in the French Air Force. He joined Michelin's research department in 1962, then took on the role of negotiator and liaison between the tire manufacturer and carmakers using their product. He was named chief of the competition department in 1973 and (aside from a six-year interlude as product development VP for Michelin in the US) he remained in that position, a dominant force in world motorsport until his retirement last year.

Under his leadership, Michelin-equipped teams achieved thousands of victories and took about 180 titles in a wide variety of motorsports on two wheels and four, including almost 30 in rallying, 55 in motorcycle grand prix racing, 11 in Superbikes, 19 in the Cross Country Rally World Cup and seven in Formula One, having led Michelin into F1 in 1977 and again in 1999.

Felicitations, Pierre, on adding this last trophy to your cabinet!

[Source: GrandPrix.com]