ENABLING FULL VIRTUAL VEHICLE/TIRE CO‑DEVELOPMENT: THE BRIDGESTONE-VOLKSWAGEN APPROACH
Wednesday 20 May 2026 10:20
The automotive industry is rapidly advancing toward comprehensive virtualization of development processes and a reduction of physical prototyping, including those for individual components. For over a decade, Volkswagen and Bridgestone have collaborated to establish an integrated virtual development framework enabling vehicle–tire co‑optimization. This long‑term partnership has resulted in a consolidated workflow now applied across all Bridgestone OE tire projects, with particular maturity for Volkswagen applications. The installation of the Driving Simulator at Bridgestone’s R&D Center near Rome has completed the virtual development ecosystem. The OE fitment development for the Golf GTI presented here exemplifies the effectiveness of this approach, achieving fully virtual tire optimization supported by robust vehicle modelling and Driver‑in‑the‑Loop subjective handling assessment.
