New rules to revitalise EU tire labelling scheme?

Based on article published in Nov/Dec edition of European Rubber Journal magazine

The European Commission has adopted proposals for a new regulation to extend the scope of tire labelling to heavy-duty vehicles and increase consumer-awareness and enforcement of the scheme across the EU.

If voted through by the European Parliament, the regulation will, from 1 Jan, 2020, oblige suppliers to display tire labels in all forms of purchase, including in-shop and online.

This will replace an existing regulation – introduced in November 2012, for passenger car and light-truck tires – requiring that all tires carry labels with information about their fuel efficiency, wet grip and noise.

According to the Commission, its proposals will strengthen the requirements on fuel efficiency, noise and safety of cars, vans and heavy-duty vehicles.

The new label would include extra information on tire performance in snow or ice conditions. The EC will also be empowered to directly impose future requirements to: add ratings for mileage and abrasion, extend the scheme to retreads; and adjust the label classes.

If effective, the product-registration requirement would, therefore,  address what is perhaps the biggest concern for the tire industry regarding the existing scheme.

An existing test and logo for snow performance will also be included in the label, while a test for ice performance is being developed towards its inclusion as a parameter in the future.

No test has yet been developed that would allow the mileage or abrasion rate of tires to be measured reliably, said the EC, noting that the latter effect is a major source of microplastics released into the environment.

These parameters will also be considered for future mandatory inclusion on the labels, once an appropriate test standard is finalised, the Commission pointed out. Similarly, re-treaded tires could be included in the scheme, when an appropriate test standard is finalised.

The grading of the parameters has been adjusted by redefining the boundaries between the current A-G classes to make them more accurate and to reflect the fact that the bottom class (G) is now empty because of mandatory safety requirements.

Potential benefits

The new regulation, reckons the EC, will lead to CO2 savings of 10 million tonnes – equivalent to removing almost 4 million passenger cars from EU roads per year – by 2030., and save up to €125 per car and per year – through increased uptake of tires with class A label instead of class F.

This assumes that the new labelling scheme will increase consumer awareness of and confidence in the label and so become more likely to purchase more fuel-efficient tires.

The proposed changes could deliver €7 billion in energy savings – through greater use of tires with lower rolling resistance –  and lead to an increase in turnover of €9 billion in the tire manufacturing, wholesale and retail sectors, the Brussels regulator further claims.

On the other hand, some media reports have suggested that the changes would add around €17 to the price of a tire for a mid-range family car through increased production and design costs.

Industry concerns

For its part, the European Tyre & Rubber Manufacturers’ Association (ETRMA) has urged EU regulators to focus on the surveillance and enforcement aspects of tire labelling, rather than ‘rescaling’ the actual tire-label parameters.

The industry association backed its argument with an own-funded report into the impact of the tire labelling scheme since its introduction in 2012. This found a “steady evolution” of the market but no significant increase in the uptake of higher rated tires.

Carried out by the Lizeo Group, the analysis of 400,000 tire labels in the EU28 found that in 2012-13, the most common tire label for passenger car tires was rated ‘E-C’ – “E” for tolling resistance and “C” for wet grip. In 2017, this label was still the most common, at around 25% of the passenger car tire market.

Less than 0.1% of all tires are currently labelled A-A, while more than 98% of all tires are still below B-B, found the study, which concluded that the tire label is still a “young tool” and not sufficiently well known by drivers and fleet managers.

These findings show that the market has yet to fully appreciate the value of tires offering the best combinations of rolling resistance and wet-grip performance, Fazilet Cinaralp, secretary general of ETRMA said in a press statement.

When reviewing the labelling scheme, therefore, the main focus should be on “what can be done to increase awareness and market up-take, before changing the grading system [by] adding new and more ambitious  classes,” urged Cinaralp.

The Lizeo Group study also discovered that about 4,000 tires were wrongly labelled – highlighting a need for greater market surveillance.

This, said ETRMA, was in line with the findings of an EC-funded report, which found that 9% of the tire models required the application of enforcement measures.

“The results clearly indicate that any rescaling of the labelling system at this stage would be premature,” said Cinaralp.

“The criteria for rescaling which are set in the [EC] ‘labelling framework regulation’ are not met and there has not been enough change at the top of the scale,” she concluded.

Real-world

There are also wider concerns that regulations do not actually reflect the performance of tires over their lifetime – especially under real-world conditions, where standards of roads, driving and tire-maintenance vary widely.

As a supplier of halobutyl rubber, used in inner liners to minimise air-pressure losses from tires, ExxonMobil Chemical is campaigning for mandatory standards for tires.

An important element of improving sustainability and safety is “to keep the air in the tires,” said Arancha Guisuraga, global market development manager, specialty elastomer and butyl business, ExxonMobil Chemical.

“Otherwise the consumer will miss out in terms of performance, fuel efficiency or CO2 reduction and vehicle range in the case of EVs,” she added in a presentation at the Future Tire Conference 2018 in Cologne, Germany.

And, as tires are the only component in contact with the road, any change in tire-type, size and pressure-setting and tread wear will have a major impact on vehicle safety and efficiency.

But, the presenter continued, consumers are unaware that an average tire loses about 2.4% of air-pressure per month or that air-retention varies widely – by as much as 250% – among tires.

Despite this, there are no air-retention regulatory systems in place today to provide transparency to the consumer about this performance parameter.

“Continuing to pass on all the responsibility to the consumer is not an effective regulation,” Guisuraga concluded. “The goal of any new standard or regulation should be to drive consistent and reliable performance and efficiency-improvement over the life of the tire.”

Different classes

In a proposal document for the new tire label regulation, the European Commission noted that classes G and F for rolling resistance, class F for wet grip and the third class for noise are now empty. This is because such tires are no longer allowed on the market. Also, the current label scheme for CAR (C1) and light truck (C2) tires has no D class for rolling resistance and wet grip.

Another concern for the EC is that the top C1 tire classes were populated – in 2017 – at the level of just 1% for the rolling resistance, but up to 26% for the wet grip and up to 18% for noise.

The top classes, it noted, will become increasingly populated over the next years, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the label. Also, noted the EC, having only two classes for noise might be too little to drive the market towards better performing tires.

The EC, therefore, listed the possible options for new labels as including: a move to a bespoke four classes scale; or to redefine the boundaries between the current A-G classes to make them more accurate.

A third option is to keep the current scale(s) but have some classes greyed-out to reflect regulatory requirements that ban tires in those classes.