MICHELIN’s LONG LASTING PERFORMANCE approach

How can we reconcile these three challenges? Always striving to bring the best added value to its customers, Michelin, which is known the world over for its products’ long service life, has tackled this twofold issue through its “Long Lasting Performance” approach. Moreover, the Group has always advocated strict regulations to promote the design of tires that perform well and are safe throughout their life. EU institutions have heeded its request and approved the introduction of a minimum threshold for worn tires’ wet-braking capacity from July 2024 onwards. Currently 99.5%⁽¹⁾of Michelin tires would successfully pass this test.

Michelin has always stood by its choice to design tires that guarantee its customers of a good level of safety throughout their service life. Over and above the tread pattern and the shape of the tire-to-ground contact patch, which play a decisive role in tire performances, the materials used are also crucially important, and Michelin has been developing distinctive know-how in these fields for over 130 years. The Group has a unique ability to combine chemistry, materials processing, composites design and an understanding of how its products are used, from fundamental research through to the manufacturing phase. Every year, Michelin devotes over 1.2 billion euros to innovation in a bid to accelerate the development of high-tech materials for the benefit of both safety and the environment.

Moreover, by encouraging technological advances, endurance races will also have played a large part in establishing Michelin’s reputation and the superior lifespan and performances of its tires, both new and worn.  Aren’t its 27 consecutive wins in the 24 Hours of Le Mans irrefutable proof of this? Over the past 10 years, Michelin will have enabled LMP1 class cars to cover up to 750 km at an average speed of 240 kmh with a single set of tires. That’s the equivalent of two F1 Grand Prix races!

Bear in mind that, from the moment a tire is fitted on a vehicle and driven, it starts to wear, and the more it wears, the more its performances change: some for the better, others not. This is because, while certain performances improve with wear – rolling resistance or noise, for example – wet braking, on the other hand, becomes less efficient as the tire wears down. For this reason, and also because safety has always been one of the Group’s core concerns, Michelin believes that tire tests should not be restricted to new tires, but should also be performed on worn tires. There are also undeniable economic and environmental benefits to being able to drive perfectly safely down to the tire’s legal wear limit. Fewer tire changes mean fewer expenses and a smaller impact on our planet.

So the “long-lasting performance” goal is at the heart of Michelin’s “All-sustainable” approach; protecting the environment, in particular, is a long-standing commitment and one of the Group’s five core values. Michelin estimates that, in Europe alone, 128 million⁽²⁾tires and 6.6 million⁽²⁾ tonnes of CO₂ emissions would be avoided if all tires could be used down to their legal wear limit. Increased safety, a reduced tire budget, less waste generated, less material used, less energy consumed: it’s obvious to Michelin that the solution lies in designing tires that are made to last, and approving tires’ performances through mandatory pre-sales testing.

New regulation on worn tires

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In Europe, replacing tires before the legal wear limit of 1.6 mm would result in over 128 million tires being manufactured every year. Worldwide, the figure would reach 400 million.

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In Europe, using tires up to their legal wear limit of 1.6 mm would save up to 6.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions every year. Worldwide, this saving would amount to 35 million tonnes.

For all of these reasons, Michelin has always been convinced of the need to update the EU regulations and has actively campaigned for this. The final impetus came in November 2019, when the European Union formally adopted the amendment of the Regulation on General Vehicle Safety, aimed at tightening road safety in Europe. Among the measures adopted by the European institutions was the very first mention of the need to lay down a threshold value for worn tires. Following the text drafted by the European Union authorities, work was conducted within the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to define the testing method and propose a test. Accordingly, this threshold value was introduced in July 2024 for the new types of passenger car tires. In other words, it will no longer be possible to market tires that exceed this threshold value.

Up until now, only new tires underwent performance testing and type approval. Nothing was done to measure the performance of a tire that was worn down to the 1.6mm tread-wear indicator. That just didn’t make sense for us. That’s why we’re pleased today to see the European regulation amended to include the testing of worn tires. For our safety, the environment and our purchasing power, we all stand to gain from this new regulation.

Cyril Roget Michelin Group Scientific Innovation and Communications Director

There are two reasons for that. Firstly, Michelin believes that the current regulatory wet-braking test, which is performed on new tires to define the safety threshold, is the one best suited to measuring worn tires’ performance. Moreover, this test, which measures the braking distance necessary for a vehicle to decelerate from 80 km/h to 20 km/h, with less than 1 mm depth of water, corresponds perfectly to the actual risk conditions that we might encounter on the road. Recent accidentology studies carried out in Germany⁽³⁾ in particular showed that only one in a thousand car accidents are caused by aquaplaning, which occurs when water is well over 1mm deep. As for the speed of 80 km/h, another study indicates that, in 90%⁽⁴⁾of the accidents that occur on wet roads, the speed at which the car was traveling before the accident happened was under 80 km/h.

Michelin is engaged in the global combat against road accidents and sees mobility as a universal right, central to human development. It has never ceased to act and innovate to make mobility ever safer and more efficient, with maximum performances and minimum resource consumption and environmental impacts. The entry into force of worn-tire testing therefore marks another major step to which the Group is proud to have contributed, and once again demonstrates the aptness of Michelin’s history-making choice to design tires with performances that are made to last.

⁽¹⁾ With the results we have to date and our performance estimates, we are convinced that less than 0.5% of our products may not have sufficient margin to pass the wet grip threshold in a worn state. These are mainly a few tire sizes specially designed for ice use with the Igloo marking.

⁽²⁾ Data from the Ernst & Young report entitled "No fatality to programmed obsolescence" - May 2017.

⁽³⁾ Studies conducted by the VUFO (the University of Dresden’s accidentology chair) and the GIDAS (the German In-Depth Accident Study project)

⁽⁴⁾ GIDAS data

Learn more

MICHELIN’s Long Lasting Performance approach

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Safety, the environment, savings: 3 good reasons to use tires designed to last

New regulation on worn tires

In Europe, replacing tires before the legal wear limit of 1.6 mm would result in over 128 million tires being manufactured every year. Worldwide, the figure would reach 400 million.

In Europe, using tires up to their legal wear limit of 1.6 mm would save up to 6.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions every year. Worldwide, this saving would amount to 35 million tonnes.

The authorities finally recognize the necessity of testing worn tires

Why perform wet-braking tests, and under what conditions?

Safety, environment and purchasing power: Michelin supports the new European Regulation R117-04 on worn car tires

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