The scramble to make this year’s Auto Bild summer tyre test shortlist is over, with no less than 21 of the 50 competing tyres making the grade. These finalists achieved the shortest combined stopping distances in wet and dry braking tests and include established premium brands as well as products that offer good performance at a competitive price.
The popular small car size 185/65 R15 is one of two dimensions that European motoring associations ADAC, TCS and ÖAMTC have evaluated for their summer 2022 tests. They fitted 16 tyre brands to a VW Polo and subjected them to the usual wet, dry safety tests as well as a range of comfort, environmental and economy-related evaluations.
Apollo Tyres aims to be the “easiest tyre company to do business with” and is implementing organisational changes in Europe that will help realise this goal. Parallel to a tweaking of the Vredestein brand’s positioning and pricing, Apollo is adapting its sales and marketing organisation and appointing new regional customer care managers. These changes come into play on 1 April 2022, and to find out more we spoke with Yves Pouliquen, Apollo Tyres’ head of sales and marketing for Europe.
Continental will launch its new summer car tyre for 14-20” applications in 100 sizes in spring 2022. The new UltraContact will address the latest trends in mobility with a new compound and tread designed to increase mileage potential, while delivering safe handling characteristics and low rolling resistance. The carcass of the tyre is designed to promote durability too. The Conti UltraContact is designed to offer increased sustainability in motoring and has been engineered to be suitable for fitment on electric vehicles. Conti sites global sales of EVs to hit 14 million annual sales by 2025. Estimates shared with Tyrepress by leading tyre business analyst Astutus Research suggest European demand for plug-in electric vehicle tyres could reach around 40 million tyres by 2025, with roughly half in the replacement market.
General Tire’s Altimax One S is the heritage-rich Continental group brand’s successor to the Altimax Sport, offering reliable dry performance, increased wet grip, and higher mileage due to its silica enriched rubber compound. The tyre is available in the UK from exclusive distributor Micheldever Tyre Services in a broad range of 15 to 20” sizes, approved for speeds of up to 186 mph.
After commencing tests of its tyres in Europe last year, Prinx Chengshan returns in 2021 to continue its testing programme. The Chinese tyre maker is utilising a number of sites, including Applus IDIADA in Spain and a facility in Ivalo, Finland, in order to test its winter, all-season and UHP summer tyres.
After bringing no new tyres to market for quite some time, last year Pirelli kicked off a product offensive with the launch of the Cinturato P7 C2 summer line. It followed this up with the Cinturato All Season SF2, and the Cinturato Winter 2 will arrive in time for next winter. And another addition to the Pirelli portfolio is apparently on its way, too.
Vredestein has launched its new Ultrac car tyre today, with a range of sizes between 15 and 18 inches suited to many of Europes biggest selling compact-medium sized cars. The tyre, the third Vredestein has launched during the pandemic, has been developed with full life cycle sustainability a key consideration. Yet the Ultrac’s performance in wet and dry conditions is also head and shoulders above its predecessor – the manufacturer says overall performance is 15 per cent better. In addition to its green credentials, the Apollo Tyres global R&D centre in Enschede, Netherlands focused on safety and comfort. As a result, the company’s flagship European brand calls the tyre’s performance “best-in-class”. Hosted by Formula 3 driver Vicky Piria, the tyre’s launch was streamed online in a virtual presentation suite, with chief technical officer Daniele Lorenzetti supplying insight into the development of the new tyre.
Whichever company is responsible for manufacturing Eurorepar Reliance tyres, the repair chain certainly appears to be moving significant quantities.
Following the announcement that PSA UK has added Reliance tyres to its British Eurorepar offer. The next question is, who makes the Reliance tyre brand? The good news is that colleagues at our German sister publication (Neue Reifenzeitung, which you can read online at reifenpresse.de) looked into this at the end of 2019 and found strong evidence that the tyres are made by Hankook.
Tyre Reviews has made the newly released Goodyear Vector 4Season Gen-3 its 2020 All Season 17” Test winner. Putting nine all-season tyres in size 225/45 R17 through their paces at Goodyear’s testing facilities in Finnish Lapland and the south of France, tester Jonathan Benson gave additional recommendations to four further tyres: Hankook’s Kinergy 4S2 (second place) and the Continental AllSeasonContact (third) were given the review website’s Highly Recommended rating, while the Bridgestone Weather Control A005 (fourth) and Michelin CrossClimate+ (fifth) were Recommended. The weighting of different conditions is particularly relevant to all-season tyre tests, given the promise of functionality in a wide range of climate and road surface conditions. Tyre Reviews opted to award overall scores based on 30 per cent wet, 25 per cent dry, 25 per cent snow, 10 per cent noise and comfort, and 10 per cent rolling resistance. See below for the Tyre Reviews video of the 2020 All Season 17” test, and for additional comments on each of the nine tyres tested.
The world’s top-selling tyre size, 205/55 R16, has been given the Tyre Reviews treatment. The site prodded and poked a dozen specimens to find out which ones deliver safety, comfort, efficiency and value – and which tyres don’t. The results have been distilled into 17 minutes of highly informative video.
Michelin introduced the first CrossClimate tyre in 2015 in a move that saw the manufacturer shift from its long-held position of being broadly opposed to all-season tyres on the basis that best seasonal performance is achieved by either summer or winter tyres. However, arguing that the CrossClimate is a summer tyre with year-round capabilities, Michelin pioneered a new category of tyre. The initial CrossClimate was followed by the CrossClimate + and the CrossClimate SUV variants 2017 and now there is the news that a completely revised version – the CrossClimate 2 – is on its way.
Yokohama Rubber has long been one of the most significant firms within the tyre industry to exhibit at the Geneva International Motor Show. Although this year’s event was cancelled, the tyre maker has proceeded with the virtual launch of no less than five products destined for European markets. The new additions to the Yokohama range are the BluEarth-GT AE51, BluEarth-XT AE61 and Geolandar CV G058, as well as the BluEarth Winter V906 and IceGuard Studless IG53 winter patterns.
Auto Zeitung’s 2020 summer tyre test is one of the largest it has ever published. The German motoring magazine has looked at 20 brands of size 225/50 R17 94/98 W/Y tyres in an evaluation that covers premium to budget. The cheapest of the tyres on test can be had for around 230 euros (£200) a set; the most expensive cost more than twice as much. As you’d expect, the winners’ podium was dominated by premium products priced well above the average. The fourth-placed tyre is a different story.
Apollo Vredestein
PSA UK
Hankook; PSA; NRZ
Michelin