181–190 of 275 posts
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Watch out, though. That coffee may contain chemicals known to the state of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm!
Actually, Prop 65 specifically exempts coffee from the warning requirement.
There are basically three major trade-off when it comes to tire compounds: rolling resistance, traction, and tire wear. You can pick 2 of the 3. When you shop for tires, manufacturers will try to make this eminently clear in the marketing - you pay a premium for tires that maximize on one or two of these features. The changes that California is proposing basically means you are going to have to choose between tractio…
We are inventing better and better compounds though, which just plain better at all three.
Formula 1 has to artificially nerf their tire compounds just to force racing teams to actually change tires at all - compounds are good enough that they can get all the grip they need while also lasting the entire race. But that's not as fun for the sport so they specific to the tire vendor that the tires must wear out halfway through the race -- but that reduced life doesn't yield increased grip.
The Michelin Defender tires are pretty all-around great in all conditions while still lasting 80,000 miles. For most people who buy a new car, that would be the only set of tires they ever buy (stock tires for 20k miles or so and then this one set until 100k and sell the used vehicle before they need to buy a second set)
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> The Michelin CrossClimate2 tires are arguably the best traction tires, In their class, but not in general. They are all-season tires. They don't perform as well as winter tires in the winter, and they don't perform as well as summer tires in the summer. They're also a terribly mushy tire. They feel like you're floating around on the road and wallowing through the turns. This doesn't matter in the slightest to someo…
>They don't perform as well as winter tires in the winter, and A lot of people don't live in climates where winter tires are even sold; particularly California, Texas, Florida, three of the most populous states. Many people in those states aren't even aware "winter tires" are even a product category. That's like complaining the Walmart in Anchorage, Alaska doesn't carry SPF 50 sunscreen.
Ridiculous regulations have been California's MO since at least the middle of the last century. Why in the hell should the government be regulating this?
Your second statement is a question worth investigating: why should the government be involved here? The simple answer is that the market has not moved for the problem of tire efficiency. There is a quote in the article that goes to the heart of this: “It’s very difficult or impossible for consumers to know how energy efficient their tires are going to be, as a result, many people unknowingly buy tires that cost them more money than necessary”. Large imbalances (like this) in information are one of the things markets do not work well in.
So the solution here is to (gradually) put a floor under how inefficient tires can be. This is one way to solve the market inefficiency (since it treated this as an externality).
I would rather have had them use an approach more like the EnergyStar system, where it requires a simple rating for the efficiency, including average savings and where this sits in comparison with competitors (in that range). I would even add to that a green/yellow/red system that would be allowed to slide the ranges over time to reflect what the market can currently produce.
There are basically three major trade-off when it comes to tire compounds: rolling resistance, traction, and tire wear. You can pick 2 of the 3. When you shop for tires, manufacturers will try to make this eminently clear in the marketing - you pay a premium for tires that maximize on one or two of these features. The changes that California is proposing basically means you are going to have to choose between tractio…
Either super slippery tires, or tires that wear out quickly Is it really not possible to get moderately-slippery tires that wear out moderately quickly, or is this just the hyperbolic writing style that infests the internet?
Michelin Defenders are warrantied for minimum 80,000 miles and are relatively low noise, good economy, good performance all around but especially good in rain. They cost $185/tire for a Honda Civic, which is a pretty normal price) (range for Honda Civic tires at Costco are $160-235, at TireRack $185/ea puts these about $25/tire over the median tire price for Honda Civic's)
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Your comment perfectly encapsulates the American thought process (I’m coming from the universal healthcare discussion on the front page) You post numbers that this will save $1B in fuel. Tons of co2 equal to taking 400,000 cars off the road. Unquestionably good for society, immensely good for future generations, but you ridicule it because it doesn’t benefit YOU enough right now. This is why the US doesn’t have nice…
It absolutely has good aspects, no doubt, but nothing about this is unquestionable. It’s significantly grayer due to all kinds of second order effects, even if you really believe in the problem and want to solve it. Depends on how many more accidents worse-gripping tires cause that result in more totaled vehicles that require replacement and what people replace them with. Depends on how much faster people have to rep…
So either the manufacturer-supplied originals are more dangerous than replacement tires, or your argument is missing something.
The rest of your quasi-questions all would need to be evaluated to see if they are true or not... and one would hope that at least some of them were evaluated when creating the policy. You seem to be assuming they were not, without any real evidence one way or the other.
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> The road scales are easily gamed, or just avoided. How are they easily gamed, without being able to shift the load as you roll over the scale? And, at least in California, the scales are placed so that, to avoid them, you have to add a bunch of time to most routes.
You shift your route. Not the load
Yes, they stated that in the second half, and I addressed it. What's the first half?
The energy efficient tires have much longer wet braking distance. And they last less (for similar priced tires). Anyway, saying how it will save money is not right way how to promote this (it is really hard to predict all 2nd order effects this might cause - including increase of accidents, noise pollution, market forces (less choice), and similar).
The article seems to contradict this: > Reducing the rolling resistance of a tire isn’t technically that difficult, said Fadie. Incorporating more silica, for example, improves not only efficiency but traction as well. Rubber chemistry and tread designs can also lead to gains and the quoted opposition never mentions this fact either, which you'd think they would.
But it is not about saving but it is about environment. And this where I get a little weary about: if they are willing to stretch truths here where else are they doing that. Requiring ID to browse internet? Flock cameras?
Of course they will use left vs right argument but I doubt this is all about saving environment.
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> manufacturers could start selling cars with worse tires to bring down the average. OEMs do the opposite already because their official MPG ratings are calculated using the OE tires. OE tires are sometimes criticized as prioritizing fuel economy too much at the expense of longevity and performance. I don’t see a reason that a car manufacturer would be incentivized to help tire manufacturers sell the cheapest tires o…
Car manufacturers watch the cost of every piece of the bill of materials. Cars compete on price, and the assortment of pieces which add perceived value to consumers. Outside of performance and very highend luxury cars, tires are an afterthought to the average car buyer.
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If they're looking to improve tire energy efficiency with regulation, shouldn't they also make it a citable offense to drive with tires inflated below 30psi? You could probably even train a ML algorithm to recognize images of vehicles with underinflated tires, and send the driver a reminder!
We are part way there, gas stations are required to provide free air and a gauge to customers buying gas.
I'm curious, do they actually check that you buy gas in the US before letting you get those services?