What is an Energy Saving Tyre?
An energy saving tyre is a tyre that uses less effort to propel a vehicle along then the original tyre designs made with carbon black, the energy or fuel saved in comparison to carbon black tyres would be classed as saved energy.
It seems at present carbon black tyres are the bench mark to compare to, any thing that rolls further than a carbon black would be class as energy efficient to a certain degree.
How does it works?
While friction holds the car to the road, it also creates resistance as the tyre rolls making the engine work harder to overcome this resistance. The harder the engine works (energy it has to create) the more fuel it burns the more it contributes to global environmental problems.
As much as 90 percent of a tyres rolling resistance can be attributed by the tyres hysteresis properties. E.g. a bouncy ball will bounce back almost to the height from which it was dropped because it gives back most of the energy transmitted to it when it hits the floor, high energy returned is classed as low hysteresis loss.
Where if you dropped a squash ball it absorbs more energy on impact and can’t bounce back as high, it has high hysteresis loss. If a tyre was made from purely a bouncy ball it would have less rolling road resistance than a tyre made from a squash ball. The problem was if the rubber was not mixed with an additive like carbon black, the tyres tread would be too soft and have no resistance to wear and would result in low mileage obtained before the tyre would require replacing.
Carbon black has the disadvantage of making the tyre behave more like a squash ball than a bouncy ball, which means it gives back less energy. Silica has the advantage of making the tyre behave more like a bouncy ball than squash ball, which means it gives back more energy. Carbon Black is replaced to a certain extent by Silica which is the key in energy tyres because its helps make the tyre durable but flexible and and more energy efficient while maintaining wet and dry grip.
In 1992, Michelin launched its 1st generation of low fuel consumption “green tyres”, made possible by the partial substitution of carbon black with silica. MICHELIN Energy Saver uses the latest generation silica which almost completely replaces the carbon black. Less fuel used and more safety in the wet due to a new generation 100% silica-based rubber compound
Michelin Energy Saver Visual Demonstration