The cost of "green" tires

Christoph Kalla, Director of the chemical company Lanxess, stated in a recent interview that eco-friendly, so-called green tires with low rolling resistance will become cheaper in the relatively near future and their cost will drop to the level of regular tires. This is due to the constantly growing selection of eco-tires on the automotive tire market. But this is not the main reason. The main reason is that, according to his forecasts, by 2012, eighty percent of tires will be optimized for low rolling resistance, which will allow regular tires to compete with "green" ones.

As for the latter, despite optimistic forecasts, the production costs of eco-tires in the next few years will still rise. This is because their production requires more synthetic rubber.

In addition, developing countries cannot yet afford to produce "green" tires due to the high cost of their production. This is beneficial to European manufacturers, who thus get rid of the influx of cheap Asian tires and thereby maintain the price bar. So, a decrease in the price of eco-friendly tires in the near future is only possible if the quality characteristics of regular tires grow rapidly. However, there is no forecast of a rapid quality leap - one that would make regular tires equal in eco-friendliness to "green" ones - for now.