Consumers to switch to 'Green' tyres.
By David Shaw, ERJ staff
Beijing -- The world's passenger car tyre consumers are moving to low rolling resistance tyres, according to a presentation by Horst Wildemann of the Technical University of Munich.
In Japan, he said, the advent of a voluntary tyre labelling scheme will drive sales of low rolling resistance tyres to 80 percent of the market within 10 years from the current 5 percent share. In the same time the share of high rolling resistance tyres will drop to under 5 percent from the current 50 percent share.
In Korea the change is set to be even more marked, with 'green' tyres taking 90 percent of the market in 10 years' time, up from around 5 percent today. The share of high rolling resistance tyres will drop to almost nothing from 40 percent, based in the introduction of mandatory tyre labels from November 2012.
Even though there is no proposed legislation on tyre labels, Wildemann said the share of 'Green' tyres in China will grow to at least 50 percent within 10 years, while the high rolling resistance tyres will fall to around 10 percent from the current share of 75 percent. Mid-range products wil take the remaining 40 percent share, but this is likely to decrease further, noted Wildemann.
He said the costs of logistics provision in China represents 18.1 percent of GDP, in comparison with 8.2 percent of GDP in the EU
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