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.
...“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.
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.
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)
> 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.
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.
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.
Are the wheels a weird size? What stopped you from replacing them with regular tires?
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.
most of a passenger car's performance and handling is its tires
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?
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.
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.
Commies. Law of unintended - we're probably going to end up with tires that sound like machine guns.
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.
> 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.