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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

The company subbed in dandelion latex for the regular stuff in a batch of its winter tires [arstechnica.com] (WinterContact TS 850 Ps) and after many miles of testing in Sweden and Germany, the company has decided dandelions are an acceptable replacement. "Winter tires typically have a higher amount of natural rubber, and the test was not to change the recipe at all, just a one-to-one swap from the rubber tree to the dandelion rubber," Zmolek told us. "They performed exactly as expected, which showed we were able to do this swap."

Right now, Continental is working with the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, the Julius Kuehn-Institute, and the plant breeder Aeskulap to breed strains of the plant with optimized rubber yields. "The challenge is not in the technology itself, but the agronomy, so we can rely on it as a continuous source," Zmolek told us. Assuming that goes to plan, we should start to see dandelion tires on sale in the next five to ten years.

SN has touched on the subject of latex in dandelions [soylentnews.org] before. It looks like one manufacturer is planning to use them in production tires.

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