When you buy your new 2010 Toyota Prius or maybe Honda Civic, you may actually be buying a car that in a roundabout way is supporting Florida's citrus industry.
Yokohama Tires is now producing a tire that is made with orange oil extract infused into the natural rubber of tires. The orange oil comes from peels that are discarded by orange-juice processors, so there is a virtually unlimited supply of raw material available.
The big advantage of the tire with a peel is that it decreases the use of petroleum in the tire manufacturing process by 80 percent, according to a story in Automotive News.
The tires have tested well for wear and braking and have been tested on race tracks.
There's only one hitch and that is that the tires are about 25 percent more expensive than comparable traditional tires. That may be because Yokohama has been working on this for 20 years and needs to recoup some of those R&D costs. Eventually the prices will probably come down.
In the meantime, Florida citrus growers may find out that their crops are just a tad more valuable. One again the state will be benefiting as people re-tire.
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