Goodyear Dunlop showcases ‘AA’ concept tyres at Reifen

On the opening day of the Reifen 2012 show in Germany, Goodyear Dunlop unveiled two concept passenger car tyres that achieve an A-grading in both rolling resistance and wet grip on the EU tyre label. The company says its long-term goal is to apply the technologies and compounds utilised in these concept tyres, the Goodyear EfficientGrip AA edition and the Dunlop Sport BluResponse AA, to the company’s top green product lines – the Goodyear EfficientGrip and the Dunlop Sport BluResponse. The concept tyres will not be available for sale, Goodyear Dunlop notes.

“We are proud to announce that we have achieved a major breakthrough in tyre technology that leads to both – significantly less fuel consumption and better wet braking performance,” said Jean-Pierre Jeusette, director Goodyear Innovation Center Luxembourg. “It’s extremely challenging to develop tyres that achieve top grading in all aspects of the EU tyre label,  keeping high levels of performance in all other relevant performance and safety related criteria such as dry braking and handling, high speed stability, mileage or aquaplaning.  Our biggest challenge is now to work on the industrialisation of these new tyre technologies and sophisticated material mixes to make sure they can be produced on a large-scale. This still requires many more months of hard work for our engineers. Whatever specific tyre performance we try to improve, the goal is always a well-balanced tyre across Goodyear Dunlop’s full spectrum of performance criteria.”