Technological Excellence in Tire Development: Continental Is Celebrating Its 150th Anniversary

Hanover, Germany, July 20, 2021. On October 8, 2021, Continental will celebrate its 150th company anniversary. Since its foundation in Hanover, Germany in 1871, Continental has been developing pioneering technologies and services for sustainable and connected mobility of people and their goods. From a small factory in Hanover the company has developed into one of the global players in the automotive industry, which is now operating in 58 countries and markets. Continental is the oldest independent and also one of the largest tire manufacturers in the world. Over the past 150 years, the company has set standards in the tire industry with its pioneering spirit and innovative strength. Time and again, it was Continental’s engineers who, with their ground-breaking inventions, ensured that tires became safer, more efficient, and sustainable. Milestones in Continental’s tire development include the first treaded tire, the first tire with a detachable rim, the patent for the world’s first tubeless tire and, with its “all-terrain” model, the first dedicated winter tire. Likewise, the first pneumatic tractor tire came from Continental. Later came the first rolling resistance-optimized tire and the first production tire to feature a tread made of dandelion rubber. Continental is also one of the pioneers in the field of digitalization. As early as 1999 the tire manufacturer demonstrated that the data required for advanced driver assistance systems can be determined even more accurately and quickly if the tire is used as a data source. This was the birth of the intelligent tire. Meanwhile Continental is connecting its tires and their sensors to the cloud and offering its customers completely new, smart and digital tire solutions and services.

“Tires are our passion. Our technological excellence has ensured safety, reliability, and sustainability for 150 years. We are proud of this,” said Christian Kötz, Head of the Tires business area and member of the executive board of Continental. He added: “Many of today’s technology standards in tires come from Continental. Time and time again, we push the boundaries of what is possible. Our goal is to produce our entire product portfolio exclusively from sustainable materials in a climate-neutral way by 2050 at the latest.”

Continental’s roots go back to the early days of the founding era. On October 8th, 1871, the “Continental-Caoutchouc- & Gutta-Percha-Compagnie” was incorporated. The product range initially included a variety of rubber products, such as toy balls, rubber mats, roller coverings, rubberized fabrics or balloons and solid tires for carriages and bicycles. When the bicycle began its worldwide career in 1892 with freewheel and coaster brake, Continental was the first German company to produce pneumatic bicycle tires and hence “pneumatics” soon became a household word. A short time later, in 1898, the production of pneumatic tires for cars also began. The first pneumatics were still treadless and had comparatively limited handling characteristics by today’s standards, especially on wet or wintry roads. All tire manufacturers were looking for solutions to the sliding susceptibility of their products – until Continental presented the world’s first car tire with a tread in 1904.

The triumph of individual mobility and advancing industrialization demanded tire products for ever new fields of application. In addition to safety, the theme of comfort also increasingly became the focus of attention. In 1908 Continental engineers caused a worldwide sensation with the invention of the detachable rim, which made wheel and tire mounting much easier. To mark its 50th anniversary, Continental was the first German company to launch large tires for commercial vehicles on the market. In 1928 tires for agricultural tractors and tractor units were manufactured for the first time. The T2 agricultural tractor tire was the first pneumatic agricultural tire in Europe. In the industrial sector, Continental revolutionized the segment of solid tires, which are used on forklift trucks, airport vehicles and other heavy-duty industrial applications. Introduced in 1932, the great success of the ContiSuperElastic solid rubber tire led to the abbreviation for this category that is customary in the industry today: CSE.

Another milestone in the industrial history of the 20th century is the first tire made of synthetic rubber, which rolled out of Continental’s factory hall in 1936. Under the effects of the shortage economy during the war years, the tire manufacturer launched the first research series to obtain rubber from Russian dandelions. A project that was taken up again in 2011 and has been successfully driven forward since then. The “Urban Taraxagum” bicycle tire is Continental’s first tire made in series production using rubber from dandelions.

In 1943 Continental filed a patent application for the tubeless tire. An invention that significantly improved the rolling resistance of tires and became a common technological principle in the post-war period and still is today. Continental first enabled particularly safe driving in winter in 1934 with its “all-terrain” model, its first dedicated tire designed for snow and thus its first winter tire. In 1953 Continental crossed the snowy St. Gotthard Pass in Switzerland with its M+S tires (mud and snow) under notarial supervision, successfully completing the first winter tire test in history.

Before a new tire from Continental is launched on the market, it has to successfully pass a wide range of tests, be it technical innovations in the passenger car, truck or special tire sector. In total, new tire models cover 25 million test kilometers each year before the actual start of production. The enormous effort is justified. Because it is the foundation for the product quality of the tire manufacturer from Hanover, for all applications – even under extreme conditions. In 2003 Continental became the only supplier of a production tire with a permissible maximum speed of up to 360 km/h with the ContiSportContact Vmax. In 2007 the ContiSportContact Vmax was the first tire to be entered in the Guinness Book of Records and was the first choice for numerous record-breaking races of well-known tuners.

For the testing of tires and all conceivable conditions, the company maintains state-of-the-art tire testing facilities worldwide. The Contidrom near Hanover, the “prototype” and reference of all Continental tire test centers, was opened in 1967. As early as 1968 the first electronically controlled driverless car took to the track at the Contidrom, to the astonishment of the press and public. Continental has further developed this technology and now uses it at its test site in Uvalde, Texas, USA, to subject its tires to endurance tests.

In 2012 the Automated Indoor Braking Analyser (AIBA) was officially opened at the Contidrom test site. This facility, which is the only one of its kind in the world, enables the brake performance of tires on different road surfaces to be tested all year round, regardless of the weather and fully automatically using unmanned vehicles. In the future, tires will also be tested there in a new type of dynamic driving simulator. Thus, professional test drivers will also be carrying out realistic driving scenarios virtually. Having each test cycle completed in the driving simulator instead of on real roadways means fewer test tires need to be produced. Hence, this investment in the new testing technology also contributes to Continental’s extensive sustainability efforts.