ECOPIA_H002

Up to 40,000 metric tonnes of CO2 – around £3,000 per HGV – could be saved in haulage every year if all long-haul work ran on premium Bridgestone tyres, according to the manufacturer's study.

Bridgestone asked Coventry University if it would conduct an analysis of the benefits of its Ecopia H002 and Duravis tyres.

The company said the data was categorised into regional – Duravis tyres – and long haul – Ecopia – and only HGVs above eight tonnes were considered for the market split, with 90% weightage given for regional and 10% for long haul.

It added that the results were calculated on the premise that all vehicles would be running on ‘D class’ tyres and would be swapping to the ‘A class’ Ecopia range on all axles.

The same equation was also applied to all regional HGVs running on Bridgestone’s ‘B class’ Duravis range, and here it found that up to three million metric tonnes of CO2 would be saved per year, with a fuel saving per regional truck of between £1,300 and £1,900.

Sreyas Sunil Kunnappally, business analytics masters graduate at Coventry University, said: “The C02 results, in particular, were a surprise to me.

“I didn’t expect to see such a huge difference here, possibly because it’s so easy to think that all tyres perform equally because they all look so similar to the naked eye. This clearly isn’t the case.

“We all think of a vehicle’s efficiency being associated with its engine, but around 35% of fuel efficiency is associated with the tyres it is operating on.”

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