Eco tires: good for the environment, bad for safety?
Continental Tire's head of development, Burkhard Wies, has issued a warning to us all against so-called "eco tires." Europe is considering labeling tires with eco ratings if they have certain attributes like especially low rolling resistance or create minimal noise pollution. But Wies says that tires purposely designed for "extremely low rolling resistance and high mileage are 10-percent worse at wet braking than those with good all-round properties." In one example, the eco friendly tires increased braking distance by more than 24 feet.The quandary being presented for motorists is that eco tires give them the chance to save the environment and save money with incentives offered for fitting a car with such tires, but perhaps at the cost of personal safety. It's early in the days of eco tires, so there is a great deal more study, work, and refining to be done. And we will have to see what Continental comes out with, since its rival Michelin already has an eco tire (shown) that comes as standard equipment on the Peugeot 308.
[Source: Auto Express]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
paul34 7:40PM (11/21/2007)
I've long been a proponent of high-performance tires. I'm not saying for everyone to get the most expensive summer tires possible, but maybe at least a very high-performance all season.
At least to me, the bit of extra money maybe slightly reduced fuel economy is well worth the extra performance it brings. And I'm not just talking about greatly improved cornering for fun - I'm talking about emergency braknig, and most importantly, the ability to make emergency maneuvers at speed (such as on the highway) without having to worry about the tires being the "weak link" in the successful execution of that emergency maneuver.
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kballs 7:41PM (11/21/2007)
I still think this is a FUD reply to the recent announcement by Michelin that they are developing tires with BOTH lower rolling resistance AND higher grip.
Rolling resistance isn't a direct factor of axial or lateral traction, it also has to do with tread pattern, tread blocks, siping, flexibility of belt plies, etc...
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naggs 8:00PM (11/21/2007)
if your willing to comprimise safty for milage, it would be far better to loosed the crash regs to drop a few hundred pounds off every car on the road
at least then you would have cars that would be better able to avoid accidents
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Astropop 12:21AM (11/22/2007)
OR
Require tougher driver's license exams/tests, as well as a minimum number of hours in a drivers course.
RDL 3:25AM (11/22/2007)
naggs:
"if your willing to comprimise safty for milage, it would be far better to loosed the crash regs to drop a few hundred pounds off every car on the road"
Astropop:
"OR
Require tougher driver's license exams/tests, as well as a minimum number of hours in a drivers course."
+1 on both.
cc100 9:17PM (11/21/2007)
awesome, make cars 10% lighter, it'll more than make up the difference.
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far jr 9:25PM (11/21/2007)
Most people don't even bother to check air pressure unless a tire is almost flat. I doubt that many get the best efficiency/ handling/ treadlife/ smooth ride that thier current tires are capable of giving due to this neglect. Who knows, maybe there will be a good market for these tires. After all we already have:
Tires for snow that stink in other conditions
Sticky summer tread that has poor treadlife
Mud tires that howl on pavement
Runflats that are poor for most people that don't work in a nail factory
Cheap tires that do nothing well except meet the needs of meager budgets (Even then a better quality tire would save them more in the long run)
Let the markets decide!
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MikeW 11:48AM (11/22/2007)
Actually we have winter snow tires that outperform all-season tires in the wet.
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/11899/tech-stuff-a-tire-for-all-seasons.html
Then again, I don't know anyone who has replaced their RS-As with RS-As.
Guenther 8:33PM (11/23/2007)
For the most part (when not on the frozen stuff), snow tires are useless, compared to their summer or all season counter parts. Also, winter tires will come apart sooner than later, with excessive tread wear.
as for the press release- definitely in response to Michelins statement, but but if th French can show better performance on all fronts, then the German logic can't poke a hole in that approach.
For us here in the US, its unfortunate, that while most manufacturers use the same Traction/Heat/Wear rating system, they are not truly standardized. If they were, and an energy rating was added, consumers could really make educated choices, whithout unwittingly sacrificing their own and others safety.
pscs 9:26AM (11/22/2007)
"Europe is considering labeling tires with eco ratings"
becomes
"Europe is considering labelling tyres with eco ratings"
Just a thought... anyway, back on 'track', my audi comes with dunlop tyres... and this is probably the reason why eco tyres are cheaper than standard tyres. probably the rubber is harder and wear-resistant... but then again, the flexibility and grip will be compromised.
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Trevor Bommersbach 10:26AM (11/22/2007)
Good work tire companies! Not only have you managed to increase fuel economy, you've managed through reduced stopping distance, which in turn actually eliminates the number of cars on the road! This has to be good for the environment...right?
The thing I've always loved about "greenies" is that their comittment to their cause always seems to overide their sense of self preservation. Darwinism in action I'd like to call it. I guess that's why the lefties are always trying to make us accept Darwinism. Then their suicidal behavoiur would seem a litle less odd... :)
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Astropop 12:39AM (11/23/2007)
"Greenies" are thinking in terms of "self preservation" for the entire human race. Maybe its an evolutionary way of thinking?
John 11:22PM (11/24/2007)
to astropop:
I've never met a greenie that truely wants to protect the environment.
Mostly because they do not research the cause they are claiming, and they just want to feel like they belong to something or just want to boss people around, "going green" is just the latest fad brought on by loads of misinformation displayed all over the media.
While becoming more efficient is never a bad thing, the way you convince others can be.
My personal belief is the whole "going green" bid is just a mass stunt from the media and corporations, they figured out that most people out there today are mindless sheep and will follow the words that are spoken to them through the idiot boxes and they've decided to take advantage of it....
Nick 7:08AM (11/26/2007)
@John - sorry, you are just plain wrong on pretty much all counts. "Greenies" (although you don't define your term) are probably people who look at things in much more detail than "non-greenies", certainly in my experience that is the case. The world is much more complex than juvenile foot-to-the-floor petrolheads would like it to be.
What amazes me is that these people actually believe the tripe that anti-AGW and anti-conservation people trot out. This stuff is rubbish, unresearched and unsupported hypothesis.
The other side of the argument - that we are the primary cause of global warming and we are destroying our environment - is extremely well researched, very thorough, and totally consistent through multiple approaches that have been taken.
In the face of this we should all be focusing all our efforts on minimising the amount of emissions we create at all times. Every gramme of CO2 that we put up into the atmosphere will stay there for a hundred years, and is contributing to the ever-increasing problem we are creating for mankind. There is no excuse for not taking every possible step all the time to minimise this impact.
Believing differently is just juvenile head-in-the-sand stuff. "I don't want the world to be any different than I would like it to be, so I will ignore all the information that supports the problems we are facing, and I won't do any detailed research to discover that the science is extremely thorough on the AGW side, but almost non-existent on the sceptic side". This is the sort of stuff that we should all have left behind when we exited puberty, but it amazes me that there are still people who call themselves adults taking this approach. Grow up, will you!
Benoit Cerrina 11:38AM (11/22/2007)
This is pure FUD due to the inability of continental to propose tires with similar performances as Michelin.
Proof? The 308 diesel mentioned which uses low rolling resistance tires breaks with shorter distances than its predecessor the 307 although it is heavier than the 307 by about 50kg
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Yggdrasilly 6:14PM (11/26/2007)
Again--don't think of them as auto/pedestrian fatalities: think of them as a new way for Greens to reduce other peoples' carbon footprints to zero.
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Martin 12:15PM (12/01/2007)
The Continental Eco Contact came second overall in an Australian group tyre(tire) test - not too bad!
As for global warming... it is a fact and would still be a fact if mankind never existed. Just look at the sea level history (intimately related to temperature) and you will see that we are approaching a peak, just like the earth has done many times before followed by a temperature crash.
The evidence for man made global warming - err what exactly is that evidence? I've never seen anything that stands scrutiny despite much research. Every argument I have seen has already been comprehensively demolished. All we ever get is "most scientists agree". Really? Will they tell us why one of these days?
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