Hankook Tire Co. has developed
an “ultra fuel efficient tire” called the fx-Optimo. Their definition of drastically improving fuel
efficiency boils down to a savings of up to 3%. As is the case with many incremental improvements, they might sound
small, but when one considers the bigger picture, every little bit helps. If everyone in the US was able to save 3% of
the fuel they use, we would reduce our gasoline and diesel consumption by about 6 billion gallons. The newly developed
tire will be targeted to the hybrid vehicle market.
If we could compare these new tires with the tires
currently offered on the Toyota Prius, we would probably see very similar fuel economy performance, since both are low
rolling resistance tires. The lifetime of the current Prius tire is limited to approximately 30,000 miles, one aspect
the new Hankook tire seems to want to address. The Hankook tire promises to have equal levels of durability compared to
existing tires, through the incorporation of a new rubber compound and tire structure design.
[Source: Tire
Review]