Tires still key to VW emissions targets

Brussels - Tom De Vleesschauwer, director automotive long-term planning & sustainability at IHS Automotive reported on “a very interesting situation” described to him by a senior figure at Volkswagen.

VW,  he was told, could either invest a whole lot of money in electrifying vehicles and so get huge benefits in terms of CO2 emissions or, alternatively, pursue many small incremental improvements to provide a big 'carbon reduction'.

Given the current level of market acceptance for electric vehicles, the VW manager said the car maker was more interested  in the latter approach, for the time being at least.

This, suggested De Vleesschauwer, that ‘green’ tire technology will “continue to be of high importance [to VW and other car-makers], particularly as we get closer to the 95-grammes of CO2 target by 2020 within Europe.”