LANXESS-TALKE joint test highly successful
Drivers are annoyed with high oil and diesel costs for a long time. Yet it is not just private users that are suffering. The logistics sector is particularly affected. This is because, despite ever-increasing fuel costs, fleet managers and operators must ensure that their vehicles are economical on the road. They can benefit significantly from innovations in the automotive and supplier industries in making vehicles more energy-efficient.
High potential savings for CVs
It is not just fleet operators in the private sector looking for environmentally-friendly and cost-effective solutions. The public sector must also consider environmental criteria when purchasing vehicles. This is ensured by the EU guidelines and domestic legislation that are following the trend and becoming stricter. Higher efficiency in the communal fleet also pleases citizens who want less noise, traffic, and fine particulates. Employees, on their part, like to travel with quiet, modern vehicles, too. But the city treasurer is especially delighted when a vehicle pool becomes more environmentally friendly and operating costs fall, without impacting the budget.
Rolling resistance: a key factor
The automotive industry is pursuing different approaches to reduce vehicle fuel consumption; for example, more efficient engines, new drive concepts, break energy retrieval, or more aerodynamic design lines. Changing to quality tires with low rolling resistance, also called “green tires”, can effectively and, above all, easily reduce fuel consumption. This is because around 20-30 per cent of a passenger car’s total fuel consumption is caused by the tires’ rolling resistance alone. For HGVs it is as much as 40 per cent. “Green tires” have a considerably lower rolling resistance than conventional tires.
Utility vehicles can make fuel savings of up to 10 per cent by employing “green tires”. And, unlike other technical measures, they can even be fitted to existing vehicles without problems.
“Green” HGV tires in the field test
To prove potential savings through energy-efficient tires under raw test conditions, LANXESS recently carried out a HGV tire test with the logistics company Talke. After three months and around 40,000 km, the results showed that “green tires”, with their comparatively low rolling resistance, reduce HGV fuel consumption by almost 10 per cent. Shipping and logistics companies can therefore save millions of euros a year in operating costs.
In addition, quality tires of this kind significantly reduce utility vehicle CO2 emissions in comparison with the standard tires. Christoph Kalla, Head of Marketing for the LANXESS Performance Butadiene Rubber department, states: “‘Green tires’ are not only extremely effective in reducing operating costs, but they also significantly contribute to conserving the environment at the same time.”
TÜV Rheinland confirms test result
TÜV Rheinland, acting as an independent institution, documented and confirmed all the test results. “We supervised a realistic HGV road test based on the EU tire label. As a result, we were happy to be able to determine that using tires with a low rolling resistance leads to high fuel savings”, stated TÜV Board Member Jürgen Brauckmann. “Ultimately, it is also an enormous contribution towards sustainability in the logistics sector.”
Rewarding investments for fleets and vehicle pools
A sample calculation shows just how worthwhile the change to “green tires” can be for a logistics company. If a fleet with a total of 300 40-tonners drives on tires that are D-rated for rolling resistance in accordance with the EU label, the company can save 1.5 million Euros a year in fuel costs just by changing to B-rated brands. This is based on a route of 150,000 km per vehicle and a fuel price of 1.40 euros/liter. The CO2 reduction amounts to more than 3,000 tons a year.
“For a long time using tires with a low rolling resistance for more efficient, more economical, and a more environmentally-friendly fleet operation has been a part of our professional fleet management”, explains Alfred Talke, Group Managing Director of the Talke Group. “The tire test has again impressively demonstrated to us the savings that we have already made in the past.”
Realistic test scenario
In late summer 2013, two 40-ton road trailers of identical construction from logistics company Talke each drove back and forth from Hürth in the Rhineland to Loos in France. The distance of such a day trip amounted to around 650 km with the journey there and back, 635 of which the HGVs spent on the motorway. Both vehicles had the exact same load weight and were fuelled in the same way. For the duration of the entire test both HGVs traveled a distance of 20,000 km each.
20,000 km, revealing results
In order to ensure that the test vehicles consumed the same amount of fuel, both 40-tonners first of all travelled on identical “green tires” with the fuel efficiency class B in accordance with the EU label. Halfway through the test, one vehicle was fitted with standard class D tires. The result was that the HGV on “green tires” used on average 2.36 liters less diesel in 100 km than its counterpart with tires of label class D. For a consumption of 25.4 l/100 km, those are savings of 8.5 per cent. Furthermore, the vehicle with B tires emitted a good 700 km less CO2 per 10,000 km.
Fleet savings calculator
To calculate fleets’ cost reduction potential, LANXESS, together with the Technical University of Munich, developed a fuel-savings calculator. This enables the economic and ecological advantages of “green tires” to be determined for the entire fleet.
The calculation program not only gives fleet operators a basis for investment decisions, but also helps to efficiently decrease vehicle fuel consumption and reduce operating costs. “Fleet managers can also use it to calculate how much fuel they can sustainably save by converting their vehicles to green tires. Furthermore, the software tool shows when such an investment will start to pay off and by how much their fleet’s CO2 emission has reduced”, explains Axel Vassen, fleet expert and Head of Public Affairs International in the LANXESS communications department.
Alongside the savings potential of tires with low rolling resistance, the program also considers the effects of driver training, wheel alignment, air pressure, loading, and other measures on fuel consumption. Traditional cars and HGVs can also be used to calculate the savings potential for rubbish, transportation, and other communal vehicle types. Furthermore, it also shows the possible reductions in CO2 emissions.
The fuel-savings calculator for cars and fleets can be found online at http://flotte.green-mobility.de/en/.