Cooper Tire Completes Work On Fuel Efficient Tire Development
In late-April, Cooper Tire & Rubber Company announced it had completed work under a $1.5 million government grant to develop advanced tire technology aimed at increasing vehicle fuel efficiency. The grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, called for Cooper to develop technology for light vehicle tires that delivered a minimum three percent improvement in vehicle fuel efficiency while lowering average tire weight by at least twenty percent, all without sacrificing performance.
The company delivered an average fuel efficiency improvement of 5.5 percent and weight reduction ranging from 23 percent to 37 percent in concept tires. The grant period began in late 2011 and continued through the end of 2014, with Cooper recently presenting its findings to the DOE. Tire development work under the grant was done at the company’s North America and Global Technical Centers, both located in Findlay, Ohio.
As a result of the grant work, the company has already incorporated new tire modeling technology into its development process and is evaluating long wearing and fuel efficient tread compound technology for use in future tires for the replacement and original equipment markets. Other technologies are being further developed for potential commercial applications in the future.