Euro 7 is the seventh set of regulations involving vehicle emissions – and this time, they’ve included tires as part of the regulation.
What effect does Euro7 have on tires?
For the first time, tires are part of the European emission standards – in particular, the particles generated when tires wear. Here’s the timeline:
- July 1, 2028: First approval of C1 (Passenger Car) tires.
- April 1, 2030: First approval of C2 tires (Light Commercial = Van and Light Truck).
- July 1, 2030: New Cars must have compliant C1 tires.
- April 1. 2032: New Vehicles with C2 tires must have compliant tires.
- April 1, 2032: First approval of C3 (Heavy Commercial = Truck/Bus) tires.
- June 30, 2032: Sales of non-compliant inventory of C1 tires must cease. This would apply to the aftermarket.
- March 31, 2034: Sales of non-compliant inventory of C2 tires must cease.
- April 1, 2034: New vehicles with C3 tires must have compliant tires.
- 31 March, 2036: Sales of non-compliant C3 tires must cease.
In case you haven’t figured it out, the tires can start being approved at some date, then, 2 years later, all new vehicle production must be with compliant tires, followed 2 years after that, with a ban on the sale of old tires that do not comply!
Sometimes, they refer to the word “Abrasion” to describe what is being regulated.
What is being regulated?
Wear particles. Sometimes they call this “Tire and Road Wear Particles” (TRWP). It’s the stuff that gets thrown into the air as a vehicle rolls down the road. It includes rubber particles, particles from the road surface, and the stuff in the road texture, such as dust and sand.
They refer to all this stuff as microplastics, even though none of those things are plastic.
And just for the record, Tire Business listed the limits for C1 tires as 0.22 grams per kilometer per metric ton, dropping 5 years later to 0.12. If I understand this correctly, this is currently tentative.
Testing?
There is an on-vehicle test, but they are working on a lab test. Generally the test is referred to as an abrasion test.
There have been problems with the lab test correlating to the on-vehicle test.
Please note that this is not regulating tire wear:
Even though tire wear rates are going to directly affected, the regulation is about the volume (except they measure this as mass = milligrams) of stuff being worn off (and a few other things!) Clearly, longer wearing tires will be the result.
As a tire engineer, I know that one way to get better wear (longer distance) out of a tire is to increase the amount of rubber on the road surface – BUT – would more rubber contacting the road surface be worse for this emission standard? Particularrly compared to a longer wearing tread rubber?
And since that affects rolling resistance, ……
What this regulation does is put another limit on how tires are designed, adding treadwear for the first time in the EU.
ADAC Testing:
Here’s a link to the test results: 33478_dppcxx.pdf
Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club, which translates to “General German Automobile Club.”
ADAC testing indicates that the most stringent suggested limits would prevent 61% of current tires from being sold. At the least stringent limit, 24% of the tires would be banned. Please note, both percentages include tires that ADAC considered unsafe – although they didn’t identify which those were.