The energy efficient tires have much longer wet braking distance. And they last less (for similar priced tires).
Anyway, saying how it will save money is not right way how to promote this (it is really hard to predict all 2nd order effects this might cause - including increase of accidents, noise pollution, market forces (less choice), and similar).
> energy efficient tires have much longer wet braking distance
This is a labelling law, not a "You can't buy the bumpy tires" law.
This improves the quality of my choice here, because I already look for the little snowflake on tires when buying them for the 3 weekends I drive in the snow.
I'd be revolting too if they banned all season tires over this, because I am not swapping winter tires for thanksgiving weekend, Xmas and ski week.
Also efficient tires don't mean driving becomes boring, a GT86 is on skinnies and that makes it more fun at 35mph in a tight corner than a BMW with pilot sports.
I think they're only calling out cost, because the skinny tires cost more money overall, but there is a net payoff period on bills.
> This is a labelling law, not a "You can't buy the bumpy tires" law.
No, the labeling part seems to be mostly secondary:
FTA
"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"
EVs have low center of gravity, but their low rolling resistance tires have less lateral grip and contributed to them failing the moose test.
Context: a car magazine simulates a car swerving around a fatal obstacle in lane and then quickly getting back to their lane to avoid a head-on collision. Taller, narrower cars tip over; poor suspension/ESC rip off tires from their rims (debeading); slippery tires send it skidding. Its a great rabbit hole in Youtube.
The article seems to contradict this:
> Reducing the rolling resistance of a tire isn’t technically that difficult, said Fadie. Incorporating more silica, for example, improves not only efficiency but traction as well. Rubber chemistry and tread designs can also lead to gains
and the quoted opposition never mentions this fact either, which you'd think they would.
Let’s do other way. If it is true that energy efficient tiers will save money then there will no need to have a law. We could do just some marketing campaign and people will be: aha I love money so let’s save money.
But it is not about saving but it is about environment. And this where I get a little weary about: if they are willing to stretch truths here where else are they doing that. Requiring ID to browse internet? Flock cameras?
Of course they will use left vs right argument but I doubt this is all about saving environment.
This. My wife and I both thought the low-rolling-resistance tires on our hybrids felt very unsafe in the rain. My Audi A3-etron's tires were also by far the least durable tires I have had on a car in my 40+ years of driving. I prematurely replaced or repaire more tires on that car in 8 years than on all the other cars I've had put together.
I eventually switched to a midsize truck, because I need to do some light towing sometimes, and my first thought was, it feels so much safer in the rain.
Once you control for tread (which you're already mostly doing by restricting the comparison to run of the mill road tires) most of how it feels in the rain comes down to tire pressure and shape of contact patch.
I had some Michelin Energy Savers on my Chevy Volt for a while. Got 25k miles out of them before they were toast. They were awful, noisy, no grip, and I didn't realize how bad they were until I got some much better tires.
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Seems right to me.
So what is the right way then?
Let people buy whatever they want.
Tire wear is the largest source of micro plastic pollution and is likely the cause of a salmon population collapse in several PNW watersheds.
1. This is in California, not the PNW.
2. There are many other ways to help salmon and their habitat. If the goal is to help them, California’s massive budget could be applied in many more targeted and effective ways to helping the fish.
3. There’s no evidence that this specific piece of regulation will help salmon in any way.
Driving slower in the rain?
People already don't do this, you think worse tires are gonna help?
Possibly an unrealistic expectation from the average driver.
Iterated games.