New Efficient Truck, Bus and Van Tires from Continental Reduce Operating Costs of Fleets

Hinnerk Kaiser, Head of Product Development Bus and Truck Tires EMEA at Continental, explains the significance of rolling resistance with regard to TCO: “For fleets with diesel vehicles, our TCO calculation shows that a tire with optimized rolling resistance and lower mileage can be the more efficient product.” However, with the fifth generation of the Conti Eco tire, the tire manufacturer has demonstrated how the old conflict between rolling resistance and mileage can be balanced today: “The new Conti Eco 5 performs well in both regional and long-distance transport. We are talking about an improvement of up to twelve percent in rolling resistance and up to ten percent in mileage compared to the previous model.” A fleet of 100 vehicles equipped with Conti Eco HS 5/ HD 5 tires instead of the older EcoRegional HS 3+/ HD 3+ product, covering around 80,000 km a year in regional transport, can save up to €69,000 on diesel and 120 metric tons of CO₂.

Kaiser sees the ability to be retreaded as another important requirement in the development of commercial vehicle tires: “Our ContiLifeCycle concept has been successfully established on the market for years. Retreaded tires are about 40 percent cheaper than new tires – with the same safety and mileage. What's more, we use around 70 percent less material than for a new tire.” 

Here, too, a calculation example shows the cost advantages. ‘If we retread the sidewall and tread of a casing twice, we get three tire lives. This amounts to a total saving of 500 to 600 euros compared to buying three new tires,’ says Kaiser.

But it is not only in the tire replacement market, but also directly with vehicle manufacturers that rolling resistance is in focus, says Leo Kolodziej, Head of OE Truck Tires at Continental: “Particularly for suppliers of electric vehicles, rolling resistance is the determining factor when selecting tires. It impacts energy consumption and in turn influences the TCO.” For battery-powered commercial vehicles, low rolling resistance is even more important than for combustion-powered vehicles: “The charging infrastructure in Europe is not yet fully developed and varies greatly from region to region. So, the range of the tractor units is really important – and this increases with optimized rolling resistance of the tires.” Additionally, since green energy sources for charging are not yet universally accessible, rolling resistance also influences how much CO₂ can actually be saved. In view of the higher weight of battery-electric vehicles, tires must also be particularly robust – without compromising on other performance criteria. A systematic analysis is also conducted on tire-road noise and driving noise, as well as the additional stress on the tires of electric vehicles due to energy recovery. “We are seeing growing interest in expert dialog among vehicle manufacturers and are doing a lot of joint testing,” says Kolodziej.

The Continental expert is convinced that electrification will remain a megatrend for commercial vehicles as well – despite the current economic and political uncertainties: “We are actually seeing a sense of optimism among vehicle manufacturers when it comes to electrification. At the IAA Transportation last September, all major commercial vehicle manufacturers presented market-ready electric models for a range of applications.” Meanwhile, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) expects battery electric trucks (BEV) to be the most cost-effective option in most classes by 2030 at the latest. This is the conclusion of the current report “Vision 2050 – Update on the global zero-emission vehicle transition in 2024”, in which the ICCT examined the total cost of ownership of various truck drives in Europe. For heavy-duty long-haul trucks, the authors expect the total cost of ownership to be the same by the end of 2025 or beginning of 2026.

The results of Continental's fleet report fit with these forecasts: According to the findings, 65 percent of fleet managers have already invested in alternative drive technologies or are currently planning to do so. 61 percent want to increase efficiency by saving fuel or energy in the next five years.

In June and July 2024, Dataforce surveyed 850 fleet managers from France, the UK, Germany and the USA. Continental published the results in November 2024 as a report entitled “The Future of Fleets”. You can download it here.