Ranking Among its Most Energy Efficient Tyres to Date
Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. (CEO: Satoru Yamamoto) is pleased to announce that it will be launching its first tyres designed for electric vehicles (EV) this April in China, where the market for EVs is now booming. The new tyre offers one of the best energy efficiency of any tyre ever developed and manufactured by the Sumitomo Rubber Group. In addition, Falken Tyre Europe is also planning to release the “e. ZIEX” in 2023 as its first replacement EV tyre for Europe, where the market for EVs is also growing at a brisk pace.
In developing tyres for EVs, the tyre is focused on pursuing the best possible performance in terms of energy efficiency and noise reduction. EVs in particular require tyres with lower rolling resistance for improved electric mileage so that EVs can travel further on a single charge. By drawing upon our advanced materials development technology to fine-tune rubber compounds, we succeeded in developing tyres that not only rank among our most energy efficient tyres to date, but also balance this with superior wet performance and steering stability.
Meanwhile, as EV engines do not produce noise, it is often said that noise from tyres and the road becomes much more prominent with EVs. However, thanks to its proprietary SILENT CORE (specialized noise-absorbing sponges), Sumitomo Rubber Group’s EV tyres provide a superior level of quietness. At the same time, the tyres themselves are also lighter than conventional tyres and this contributes to resource savings as well as a lower overall environmental impact.
In addition to outstanding performance, Sumitomo Rubber Group also set out to give “e ZIEX tyres an eye-catching design, utilising its proprietary “Nano Black*1” design technique to produce sidewall logos in deeper, more vivid shades of black. In this way, our new EV tyres respond to the diverse needs of EV users while boasting some of our best ever performance in terms of energy efficiency.
In recent years, the global market for EVs has been growing at an extraordinary pace in keeping with rising environmental awareness worldwide. Amid this backdrop, the Chinese Government and the European Commission have both set ambitious targets for EV adoption rates and the reduction of CO2 emissions, making China and the EU leading markets for EVs. In light of these market conditions, the Sumitomo Rubber Group has decided to introduce its first replacement tyres for EV in China this spring. It is planning to follow this up with the launch of new EV tyres for Europe in 2023, after which we will be expanding our EV tyre offerings in other regions.
In August 2021, the Sumitomo Rubber Group unveiled a new Long-Term Sustainability Policy, “Driving Our Future Challenge 2050*2,” as the next evolution of our longstanding efforts to tackle environmental issues head-on. The release of “e ZIEX” represents a major step in the development of products that are in line with this policy while also bringing the company one step closer to our goal of achieving carbon neutrality by improving the electric mileage of EV while reducing the amount of resources used in its tyres.
