A new report from Continental says that contrary to common misconceptions, winter tires have as little rolling resistance as summer tires, due to the material used, their low weight, and their tread design. This means that consumers shouldn’t put off changing early to winter tires, and that the extra fuel consumption they experience in winter is due to longer engine warm-up, not tires.
Continental’s tire engineers have focused their attention on products in the ContiEcoContact range, and have reduced rolling resistance successively in each model, which is now 20% lower than in tires prior to the Eco range’s launch. Development has now moved on to the third-generation model, which further resolves the conflict between low rolling resistance and wet road surface grip. Continental says that in some models, the rolling resistance coefficient of winter tires is even slightly lower than in their summer counterparts.
