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Tires are pretty high-tech items already.
The rubber content is much lower than you expect. There is substantial weight in reinforcing fibers (steel, aramid/Kevlar, polyester). The "rubber" part is heavily filled with carbon (likely created from oil, but not certainly) and minerals (largely silica). And the polymer part is a complex mix of rubbers.
I don't know how you would fairly allocate the "oil cost" of a tire. I do know that almost everytime I see an estimate like that from an "environmentalist", it's a lie created by multiplying mis-matched numbers. ("Save two gallons of water by turning off the tap when you brush your teeth." Sure...) They should be working to get fair comparisons for tire compounds. (How can you find a sticky tire with long life and good energy return?) Not say "everything you do is bad" .
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