HONG KONG (PRWEB) January 25, 2019
Hong Kong-based advanced materials innovator, Surwon Technology says that testing of a road-legal version of its graphene-enhanced rubber tire compound has performed well in controlled tests at a secret proving ground believed to be located in South Korea.
Testing began last week following the Christmas break and all indications are that the tire has excelled in both dry and wet conditions but Surwon Technology’s Chief Technology Officer said the tire’s commercial viability would rise or fall on what he called “far more mundane factors”.
“We had no doubts whatsoever that the tire’s performance would be impressive given what we’d seen on the F1 wet compound we tested so extensively last year. What we need to be impressed by with this road tire differs considerably from the race variant. We need to gauge how well it wears and whether or not it can be produced at a cost that doesn’t render it prohibitively expensive at the point of delivery to the end user,” he explained.
He said that the race compound didn’t have to factor in matters of wear and tear since F1 race teams were more concerned with outright performance and cost concerns were negligible given the size of their budgets. “The road tire will almost certainly cost more than a conventional tire but we and our partners will need to keep the premium as low as possible while selling it on its ability to last much longer and to deliver superior performance in real world, road driving conditions,” he added.
Surwon Technology says its partner would likely be targeting manufacturers of luxury sporting saloons such as those made by BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Lexus and others to include the uprated tire as a cost-option to their mid-level models.