Energy Efficient Tires – Latest Technology Advancement

This is a well-known fact that if vehicle tires are kept well inflated not only you can minimize damage to your tires but at the same time save fuel also. Now with technology advancement, you can in fact take advantage of the new generation energy efficient tires.

These tires are being manufactured by many companies including Michelin, Goodyear, Continental, and Toyo.

How much you can save?

The recent advertisement of Goodyear assures that their FuelMax tires can provide four percent reduction in fuel consumption. This might be a conservative estimate when you consider the report of the StockAnalyst website, the economy driving champion were able to drive 9 miles more per gallon when using FuelMax tires manufactured by Goodyear.

Recent manufacturer’s test has confirmed that Michelin’s Energy Saver tires can increase fuel efficiency by 8 percent which seems quite encouraging. If we calculate it on annual basis, it becomes a huge savings every year; it may offset the calculation as these tires are expensive as compared to the conventional tires.

Vehicle Handling

In the past the manufacturers of tires used mixture of silica in the rubber compounds to decrease the rolling resistance, this would increase the fuel efficiency. This resulted in fuel savings but at the same time decreased the tire life. The silica mixture makes the tires hard and the tires loose the flexibility.

But now thanks to the silica distribution strategy, the tire life has increased so has the fuel efficiency. Vehicle tires are weather proof and are quite safe also. Michelin Energy Saver have improved the stopping distance by over eight feet as compared to the standard tires, the total life of the tire is 16,000 miles more over the standard tires.

Greener Tire

With the increase in the fuel efficiency another benefit is that harmful carbon emission is also reduced. A normal car emits around 14,000 pounds of carbon annually. Michelin claims that with the use of these tires the emission can be reduced by almost 2,000 pounds a year. This is equivalent to planting of 40 trees. This offers a wonderful opportunity to cut down the carbon footprint without having to compromise with performance and safety and save money at the same time.

It is expected that most of the tire retailers stock sufficient quantity of energy saving tires and also provide training, experience, computer tools and professional help to you in determining the type of tires which suits your vehicle. When purchasing these tires, you will have to consider your driving habits, your budget and the range of driving per day.

Another point to bear in mind that when you shift to energy saving tires, you will have to change all the four tires in one go, this may require a bigger initial investment. You can also opt for nitrogen inflation; as such a step will help you to maintain proper tire pressure.

Such a technique does not affect the performance with the temperature change, maintaining the right pressure in the tires will ensure the long life of the tires and savings on the fuel expenditure.