It cost me $1600 to change the 4 tires for my Tesla because they are “energy efficient” and matched my original tires. I do not want the tires for my other car to be this expensive. I don’t care about efficiency those tires are literally 4X the price of my other car a Honda.
My Honda’s energy efficient tires are cheap. Your Tesla tires are expensive because of their lower volume and high performance design. They have different compound and more durable construction to handle the weight and torque better, and have noise dampening inserts.
An energy efficient tire for a Honda is just a mid priced tire for a Honda, and probably cheaper to install because they likely use just a $0.50 rubber valve stem too.
They're different, yes, but not that different from the others. The price difference mostly comes from the fact that those who can afford pricey EVs also can afford pricey EV tires and as such they're priced the way they are. Once EVs come down in price to match or go below ICE-powered cars tire prices will go down as well.
Not the OP, but for my EV, it was a combination of higher load rating because batteries are heavy, tread compound needing to be different (more expensive) because of high torque requirements, and rolling resistance and tire noise being much more important for EVs than ICE cars.
...“designed to ensure that replacement tires sold in the state are at least as energy efficient, on average, as tires sold in the state as original equipment.”
My nose for unintended consequences says manufacturers could start selling cars with worse tires to bring down the average.
That being said, the quoted figures do sound good. Maybe less compelling in someplace like Texas with very low gas prices:
The energy commission calculated that more efficient tires cost between $6 and $26 more per set, but that increase is more than offset by reduced fuel consumption. It put net savings at $85 to $153 over the lifetime of the tire when gasoline is $4.60 a gallon, though the savings could be 25 percent higher with this year’s price spikes.
> manufacturers could start selling cars with worse tires to bring down the average.
OEMs do the opposite already because their official MPG ratings are calculated using the OE tires. OE tires are sometimes criticized as prioritizing fuel economy too much at the expense of longevity and performance.
I don’t see a reason that a car manufacturer would be incentivized to help tire manufacturers sell the cheapest tires on the market
> My nose for unintended consequences says manufacturers could start selling cars with worse tires to bring down the average.
They won't want to do that because it'll hurt their advertised mileage/range.
This is aimed at the different incentives between selling tires to manufacturers (make sure mileage is good, balance that against raw cost) vs direct to consumers (up front cost is king).
There are doubtless still some potential loopholes that will be explored, though some of the most obvious (like reducing tread depth, mentioned here, appear to have been considered already: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a71509031/california-tire-... ). It doesn't appear to be that naive.
It's also something that's hard to find info on when shopping for tires, so more transparency should help consumers.
"...adopt a replacement tire efficiency program “designed to ensure that replacement tires sold in the state are at least as energy efficient, on average, as tires sold in the state as original equipment on new passenger cars and light-duty trucks.” Replacement tires are those purchased by drivers to replace existing tires."
Tires are not car-specific. This sounds like you couldn't just go out and buy some random tires, you could only buy tires that are designated for your specific vehicle. And that owners of two vehicles with the same size tires would have different allowed tire choices, depending on what their OEM tires were.
Put another way, is this saying you can't buy wider than OEM tires, and that you can't buy all-terrain tires for something that came with street tires?
And what are they gonna do if you just go to the tire store and say I want X tires? So of course none of this will be enforced. It's just to provide the little leaf indicator.
How much of this is a solvable problem, insofar to the best of my knowledge there is no fundamental workaround for the fact placing heavy objects moving fast on rough surfaces generates friction which leads to the erosion of surfaces?
I think particulate pollution would be an acceptable outcome if the tires themselves were biodegradable over 10+ years. But to my understanding the vulcanisation process that's employed makes it impossible.
Probably the weirdest thing about this is the state doing something that results in it getting less tax money. This was lobbied for by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
I would like to see a rule added that requires embedding a uuid for each tire so if you litter it, or your trucking company loses a re-tread, the state can chase you down and bill you, even years later. Upon selling a vehicle or replacing tires, your name is taken off the liability list and transferred to the new owner or shop. The retreads alone cost the state quite a bit and are dangerous to remove from the traffic lanes.
That would be too easy to remove. I'm thinking something like a tiny ribbon with a barcode embedded in the tread. Otherwise it would be trivial to cut the spigot (assuming that's where the sensor is located)
Fine, but in that case the trucking companies should also be able to bill the state for all damage caused to their vehicles by badly maintained roads. Maybe every pothole should have an ID so that damage caused by it can be traced back and billed to the state responsible for managing that part of the road?
Better still, have rules about maintenance for both roads as well as vehicles, use regular (yearly, past-the-winter-season for roads) inspections and deal with those who do not abide by the rules by (for vehicles) denying road access until problems have been mitigated or (for roads) deductions in road taxes or something similar, something to make it costly for the state to evade their responsibility. Fines don't work here since they'll just increase taxes to pay them, they need to lose funds to at least the amount of what it would have cost to fix the problems.
Typically, there's a trade-off between rolling resistance/energy efficiency and traction/low noise. It's very easy to make long-lasting, efficient tires that are unsafe. It's difficult to make them both categories and quiet.
Maybe single occupancy personal vehicles are wasteful and mass transportation should be invested in rather than shaming individual into token behaviors compared to large-scale waste and consumption sources elsewhere in the economy?
Not exactly. You can own fully automatic “machine guns” here, but you have to purchase an exorbitantly priced tax stamp. There are special triggers you can add to your AR-15 that allow full auto via legal loopholes. But they’re banned on a regular basis after the ATF catches wind. Your best chance at hearing a machine gun sound is at a car meet up where the young hoodlums have aggressive pop tunes (explosions bang and pop out of the exhaust) or at a shooting range that rents out actually fully automatic rifles.
What a silly law. If a tire is "inefficient" and therefore "bad", why can't California just ban the sale of them? Instead there will be a new government funded office and rating system with "leaf" icons that 95% of consumers will ignore completely.
Like all types of laws like this, the "$1B" claim will never be reviewed or judged to see how accurate it is. (It's not, at all)
"why can't California just ban the sale of them" -- because that infringes freedom too much? There are probably lots of special machines with tires (e.g. in construction, farming, mining) that absolutely need "bad tyres". Because only they work, e.g. due to construction form or physical properties like maximum pressure.
If some armchair person now goes here and outright bans all tyres that don't match some efficiency numbers ... then all of the users of such equipment will be punished. THAT would be an overreaching government action.
However, having some labels that indicate to those customers that care (and can care, because they don't have to consider other constraints) is actually something that enlarges freedom. You get the info, you can act on it, but you're still free to NOT act on it should the circumstances for that be okay. And ultimately it's you that decides this, not some government authority.
So about 1% of a 1% of a market. Got it. All of the information about the tires is already available. There is no new information, just duplicated.
If a large number of consumers actually cared about their tires drag coefficient we wouldn't be having this conversation, because a large number of consumers already cared about their tires drag coefficient. But nobody does and this law will not change anything.
> If a tire is "inefficient" and therefore "bad", why can't California just ban the sale of them? Instead there will be a new government funded office and rating system
I understand how the article could make it sound like they're doing some kind of complicated matching process, but what California is doing here is pretty close to just banning the sale of them. They're establishing the rolling resistance coefficient as the state's official measure of tire efficiency, attaching a leaf ranking to different ranges, and through 2031 phasing in maximum values which tires must meet to be sold.
It cost me $1600 to change the 4 tires for my Tesla because they are “energy efficient” and matched my original tires. I do not want the tires for my other car to be this expensive. I don’t care about efficiency those tires are literally 4X the price of my other car a Honda.
My Honda’s energy efficient tires are cheap. Your Tesla tires are expensive because of their lower volume and high performance design. They have different compound and more durable construction to handle the weight and torque better, and have noise dampening inserts.
An energy efficient tire for a Honda is just a mid priced tire for a Honda, and probably cheaper to install because they likely use just a $0.50 rubber valve stem too.
They're different, yes, but not that different from the others. The price difference mostly comes from the fact that those who can afford pricey EVs also can afford pricey EV tires and as such they're priced the way they are. Once EVs come down in price to match or go below ICE-powered cars tire prices will go down as well.
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The energy efficient tires for my Chevy EV are $800 for a set of 4. You're paying the luxury car parts tax.
Mine are really close to needing to be replaced and I’m not looking forward to the 1500+ it’ll cost. I’ve gone further than the est lifespan at least.
Isnt that because it has crazy torque, AWD, and high weight?
Same thing with ebike tires vs normal bike tires
Are the wheels a weird size? What stopped you from replacing them with regular tires?
Not the OP, but for my EV, it was a combination of higher load rating because batteries are heavy, tread compound needing to be different (more expensive) because of high torque requirements, and rolling resistance and tire noise being much more important for EVs than ICE cars.
most of a passenger car's performance and handling is its tires
1. Shop around, there are cheaper tyres with same specs
2. Yours probably have foam for silent operation
3. They also have higher load spec, lower rolling resistance, stronger sidewall
4. Most importantly, they are likely much wider than normal car tyre, since Tesla's are quite high performing.
That being said, the quoted figures do sound good. Maybe less compelling in someplace like Texas with very low gas prices:
> manufacturers could start selling cars with worse tires to bring down the average.
OEMs do the opposite already because their official MPG ratings are calculated using the OE tires. OE tires are sometimes criticized as prioritizing fuel economy too much at the expense of longevity and performance.
I don’t see a reason that a car manufacturer would be incentivized to help tire manufacturers sell the cheapest tires on the market
> My nose for unintended consequences says manufacturers could start selling cars with worse tires to bring down the average.
They won't want to do that because it'll hurt their advertised mileage/range.
This is aimed at the different incentives between selling tires to manufacturers (make sure mileage is good, balance that against raw cost) vs direct to consumers (up front cost is king).
There are doubtless still some potential loopholes that will be explored, though some of the most obvious (like reducing tread depth, mentioned here, appear to have been considered already: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a71509031/california-tire-... ). It doesn't appear to be that naive.
It's also something that's hard to find info on when shopping for tires, so more transparency should help consumers.
"...adopt a replacement tire efficiency program “designed to ensure that replacement tires sold in the state are at least as energy efficient, on average, as tires sold in the state as original equipment on new passenger cars and light-duty trucks.” Replacement tires are those purchased by drivers to replace existing tires."
Tires are not car-specific. This sounds like you couldn't just go out and buy some random tires, you could only buy tires that are designated for your specific vehicle. And that owners of two vehicles with the same size tires would have different allowed tire choices, depending on what their OEM tires were.
Put another way, is this saying you can't buy wider than OEM tires, and that you can't buy all-terrain tires for something that came with street tires?
It's "on average", so no, you still can.
And what are they gonna do if you just go to the tire store and say I want X tires? So of course none of this will be enforced. It's just to provide the little leaf indicator.
I’d be much more interested in particulate pollution limits for tires.
How much of this is a solvable problem, insofar to the best of my knowledge there is no fundamental workaround for the fact placing heavy objects moving fast on rough surfaces generates friction which leads to the erosion of surfaces?
I think particulate pollution would be an acceptable outcome if the tires themselves were biodegradable over 10+ years. But to my understanding the vulcanisation process that's employed makes it impossible.
The real changes are to make them less toxic! There are a bunch of approaches to take there.
Probably the weirdest thing about this is the state doing something that results in it getting less tax money. This was lobbied for by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Looking forward to picking up new pilot sports in Nevada.
Same. It seems like they will just give them one leaf marking and not outlaw them outright, though?
TIL we have LED lightbulb rules but every bulb in home depot has terrible PWM that's bad for your eyes.
Another 20 years and maybe the government will finally address that.
On the tires topic, I'm fine with this as long as they don't ban the sale of anything. Let the consumer decide.
Can you get LED lightbulbs you like online?
Yeah, the Philips EyeComfort Flicker Free bulbs. Which HD used to sell. Now it's 90% a couple other brands.
The problem is landlords and normal people just go to home depot so every time I move it's a giant replace bulbs fiasco (or even replacing fixtures).
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Dual feeling about this.
Non-OEM tires are usually louder, because they trade in efficiency for noise.
OTOH I had a car that came with Michelin Super Ports and it was a much better ride on Michelin PS4S.
I would like to see a rule added that requires embedding a uuid for each tire so if you litter it, or your trucking company loses a re-tread, the state can chase you down and bill you, even years later. Upon selling a vehicle or replacing tires, your name is taken off the liability list and transferred to the new owner or shop. The retreads alone cost the state quite a bit and are dangerous to remove from the traffic lanes.
Do TPMSs have uuids? Although I suppose it would just be a matter of time until Flock tracks those too, if they don't already
That would be too easy to remove. I'm thinking something like a tiny ribbon with a barcode embedded in the tread. Otherwise it would be trivial to cut the spigot (assuming that's where the sensor is located)
The sensor is stuck to the inside of the wheel and can't be removed without unmounting all 4 tires.
Yep! That's how your car picks it's own four tires out of a parking lot full of tires yelling their pressure.
Fine, but in that case the trucking companies should also be able to bill the state for all damage caused to their vehicles by badly maintained roads. Maybe every pothole should have an ID so that damage caused by it can be traced back and billed to the state responsible for managing that part of the road?
Better still, have rules about maintenance for both roads as well as vehicles, use regular (yearly, past-the-winter-season for roads) inspections and deal with those who do not abide by the rules by (for vehicles) denying road access until problems have been mitigated or (for roads) deductions in road taxes or something similar, something to make it costly for the state to evade their responsibility. Fines don't work here since they'll just increase taxes to pay them, they need to lose funds to at least the amount of what it would have cost to fix the problems.
Typically, there's a trade-off between rolling resistance/energy efficiency and traction/low noise. It's very easy to make long-lasting, efficient tires that are unsafe. It's difficult to make them both categories and quiet.
Maybe single occupancy personal vehicles are wasteful and mass transportation should be invested in rather than shaming individual into token behaviors compared to large-scale waste and consumption sources elsewhere in the economy?
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So normal US background noise?
Not exactly. You can own fully automatic “machine guns” here, but you have to purchase an exorbitantly priced tax stamp. There are special triggers you can add to your AR-15 that allow full auto via legal loopholes. But they’re banned on a regular basis after the ATF catches wind. Your best chance at hearing a machine gun sound is at a car meet up where the young hoodlums have aggressive pop tunes (explosions bang and pop out of the exhaust) or at a shooting range that rents out actually fully automatic rifles.
What a silly law. If a tire is "inefficient" and therefore "bad", why can't California just ban the sale of them? Instead there will be a new government funded office and rating system with "leaf" icons that 95% of consumers will ignore completely.
Like all types of laws like this, the "$1B" claim will never be reviewed or judged to see how accurate it is. (It's not, at all)
It'll never get reviewed. They'll distract them with something other piece of news.
And don't be shocked if a bunch of California government officials bought a bunch of Goodyear stock right before this.
Because things aren't as simple as you make up.
"why can't California just ban the sale of them" -- because that infringes freedom too much? There are probably lots of special machines with tires (e.g. in construction, farming, mining) that absolutely need "bad tyres". Because only they work, e.g. due to construction form or physical properties like maximum pressure.
If some armchair person now goes here and outright bans all tyres that don't match some efficiency numbers ... then all of the users of such equipment will be punished. THAT would be an overreaching government action.
However, having some labels that indicate to those customers that care (and can care, because they don't have to consider other constraints) is actually something that enlarges freedom. You get the info, you can act on it, but you're still free to NOT act on it should the circumstances for that be okay. And ultimately it's you that decides this, not some government authority.
So about 1% of a 1% of a market. Got it. All of the information about the tires is already available. There is no new information, just duplicated.
If a large number of consumers actually cared about their tires drag coefficient we wouldn't be having this conversation, because a large number of consumers already cared about their tires drag coefficient. But nobody does and this law will not change anything.
> If a tire is "inefficient" and therefore "bad", why can't California just ban the sale of them? Instead there will be a new government funded office and rating system
Isn’t it doing both?
I understand how the article could make it sound like they're doing some kind of complicated matching process, but what California is doing here is pretty close to just banning the sale of them. They're establishing the rolling resistance coefficient as the state's official measure of tire efficiency, attaching a leaf ranking to different ranges, and through 2031 phasing in maximum values which tires must meet to be sold.