Cutting your fuel bills with the right tyres but at what cost for safety?

Publication date: 12 March 2009

The European Commission wants to label tyres according to fuel efficiency. But is saving energy being balanced with safety and clear information for the motorists?

Choosing the best tyres can help motorists to reduce fuel bills by up to 10% compared to the worst set of tyres available on the market. The European Commission even expects fuel savings from increased use of fuel efficient tyres to be equivalent to between 2.4 and 6.6 million tonnes of oil in 2020. That's why the European Commission came out with a proposal in November 2008 to introduce a labelling scheme for tyres. The aim is to help consumers when buying more energy efficient tyres by providing harmonised and easy to understand information.

Depending on the speed with which consumers change their buying habits, fuel savings could even exceed the annual oil consumption of Hungary. Estimates as to the CO2 savings from all vehicle types range from 1.5 million tonnes to 4 million tonnes per years. That's equivalent to taking 0.5 million to 1.3 million passenger cars off EU roads per year.

The Directive put forward by the European Commission still needs to be approved by the European Parliament and by EU Member States. In all events, the Czech Presidency of the EU has made tyre labelling a priority. In the European Parliament, MEPs hope to vote on the proposal in May 2009, just before the European elections. The proposed directive would require that tyre manufacturers declare the fuel efficiency, wet grip and external rolling noise performance of tyres fitted on passenger cars (C1), light (C2) and heavy duty vehicles (C3). The European Commission would like to see tyre performance displayed at points of sale by means of a sticker. It should also be given in technical promotional literature such as catalogues, leaflets and/or web marketing. The aim would be to have the labelling scheme up and running by the end of 2012. The new focus on environment concerns could however have a negative impact on safety performance.

Friedrich Eppel (responsible for Special Projects Tyre, Noise, eSafety) at the Austrian Club ÖAMTC sees the benefits from the European Commission's proposal, but fears that safety has taken a back seat. ”The European Commission has put more efforts into the environmental aspect of the proposal rather than into the safety aspect,” Eppel told us. “Cheap tyres, for instance, could be advertised as grade A tyres. But they would not be A grade as far as wet grip is concerned. And a cheap tyre could be graded A in terms of fuel efficiency, but not for wet grip.”

The safety performance of a tyre can not be sacrificed for environmental concerns. Grade A fuel efficient tyres do not necessarily perform best in wet condition “The increase in braking distance required by such tyre on wet roads  means a tremendous increase in collision speed,” adds Wilfried Klanner, Technical Director of the FIA European Bureau.

Eppel says that the levels for wet grip given in the labelling proposal are not high enough. ”The level for wet grip should be raised. From our tests, I know that a grade “A” level for wet grip will be reached very easily. On the other hand, the level for fuel efficiency is quite high. Not a lot of the models will be graded A in terms of fuel efficiency.”

Eppel also believes that having three different properties on one single label may mislead tyre buyers and users. “A tyre has to perform well in more than three ways. The label, however, gives no information about the grip on dry road, winter performance or wear and tear,” said Eppel. “Such a tyre label might be counter-productive in terms of the long-standing work of clubs to raise road safety,” he concludes.

 The FIA also urges that consumers are informed on the full nature of both fuel efficiency and wet grip. “Most clubs have concerns about the directive as it is currently drafted. Motorists could be misled, if they base their purchasing decisions on such simplified information which does even match up to the comprehensive tyre tests results, that numerous FIA clubs have been publishing for the last 30 years” adds Wil Botman, Director General of the FIA European Bureau.

Based on these views FIA European clubs are advocating a four-point plan of action to bring the current version of the directive into shape. The EU institutions have been urged to take on board the following revisions:

1. Adaptation of wet grip scaling to the state of the art, on the basis of the clubs’ tyre test results, in order to eliminate the imbalance between fuel efficiency rating and wet grip rating

2. Revision of the label in order to get rid of the optical imbalance between fuel efficiency and wet grip weighting

3. Demand for a further harmonized testing method, at least for wet grip rating of C2 tyres and introduction of a wet grip scaling for this tyre category.

4. Demand that the fuel efficiency rating is never shown without the wet grip rating.

At the end of day safety cannot be dangerously compromised at any price or for any environmental consideration.