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, setting the standard for tire longevity and performances
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!
Safety, the environment, savings: 3 good reasons to use tires designed to last
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
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?
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.
(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.