Research and innovation is running in full swing in the automotive industry to reduce vehicle fuel consumption by developing more efficient engines, new drive concepts, break energy retrieval, or more aerodynamic design lines. Changing to green tyres that has a low rolling resistance can effectively and easily reduce fuel consumption.
LANXESS, the leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 8.0 billion in 2014 and about 16,600 employees in 29 countries, has at its core the development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates, and specialty chemicals. It has come out with the concept of green tyres that are being tested by TÜV Rheinland, an independent institution.
Around 20 to 30 per cent of a passenger car's total fuel consumption is caused by the tyres' rolling resistance alone. For HGVs, it is as much as 40 percent. Green tyres have a considerably lower rolling resistance than conventional tyres. Utility vehicles can make fuel savings of up to ten percent by employing green tyres. And, unlike other technical measures, they can even be fitted to existing vehicles without problems.
To prove potential savings through energy-efficient tyres under raw test conditions, LANXESS carried out a HGV tyre test with the logistics company Talke. After three months and around 40,000 kilometers, the results showed that green tyres, with their comparatively low rolling resistance, reduce HGV fuel consumption by almost ten percent. Shipping and logistics companies can therefore save millions of euros a year in operating costs. In addition, quality tyres of this kind significantly reduce utility vehicle CO2 emissions in comparison with standard tyres.
Christoph Kalla, Head of Marketing for the LANXESS Performance Butadiene Rubber department says, "Green tyres' are not only extremely effective in reducing operating costs, but they also significantly contribute to conserving the environment at the same time."
TÜV Rheinland has documented and confirmed all the test results.
To calculate fleets' cost reduction potential, LANXESS, together with the Technical University of Munich, developed a fuel-savings calculator. This enables the economical and ecological advantages of green tyres to be determined for the entire fleet.
The calculation program not only gives fleet operators a basis for investment decisions, but also helps to efficiently decrease vehicle fuel consumption and reduce operating costs. "Fleet managers can also use it to calculate how much fuel they can sustainably save by converting their vehicles to green tyres. Furthermore, the software tool shows when such an investment will start to pay off and by how much their fleet's CO2 emission has reduced", explains Axel Vassen, fleet expert and Head of Public Affairs International in the LANXESS communications department.
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