according to the eu regulation for general safety of motor vehicles and directive on the labeling of tires, which will officially come into force nov 1, 2012, the tires which do not meet the minimum standard of the european union for performance guidelines, including rolling resistance, shall not be sold in the territories of the european union. at present, large chinese enterprises may meet the eu minimum standard for some indices, but as a whole, the quality of chinese radial tires still has a gap between the requirements of the directive on the labeling of tires. fan rende, the president of china rubber industry association, said radial tire producers, particularly the radial tire producers exporting radial tire to the eu, should adjust and improve their production, raw material purchase and inspection indicators of quality in an all-round way to adapt to the eu directive.
at the sept 15 and 16 meetings for technically coping with the eu directive on the labeling of tires, organized by the technical and economic committee of china rubber industry association, michael staude, who participated in the drafting of the directive, revealed the tires for passenger cars, light duty trucks, heavy duty trucks and buses must be pasted with a label when they are sold in eu by next november, according to the requirements of the directive. also included in the directive, the label shall indicate the rolling resistance, noise and wet grip of the tire. this directive also explicitly specifies the minimum targets of the performance in the following three aspects: the highest performance is grade a and the lowest is grade g; tires not up to the minimum limit (below grade f) may not be sold in eu. tires produced before june 30 of next year are not required to be labeled and may still be sold in the eu.
the result of a sampling survey on large tire enterprises recently completed by the national technical committee 19 on tires and rims of standardization administration of china indicates the rolling resistance of most chinese tires fall into grades e and f, and most of them may meet the minimum requirements of the eu in the first stage, but a considerable portion of them are unable to meet the minimum requirements of the eu in the second stage.
the result of a survey and analysis by the tire research institute of the shanghai tire & rubber co., ltd. on chinese heavy truck tires indicates about 30 percent of heavy truck tires are not up to the minimum requirements of the eu on rolling resistance in the first stage and 70 percent of them do not meet the minimum requirements on rolling resistance in the second stage. to summarize, 36 percent of the tires in china are not up to eu standard in the first stage and 50 percent of them do not meet eu requirements in the second stage.
currently, more than 40 percent of chinese tires are exported and the eu has surpassed the united states, becoming china’s largest export market. fan rende stressed the eu tire labeling directive is coming soon and all export enterprises should pay attention to it and raise product quality for the tire formula, design, quality management and other aspects. at present, china rubber industry association is preparing for the establishment of the chinese tire label law workgroup and making a strong effort in promoting the formulation of chinese regulations relating to tire labels. meanwhile, the association is speeding up the formulation of the technical code for radial tire process and urging enterprises to strengthen standards and technical management. fan rende hopes tire enterprises can accelerate it-based reformation to significantly reduce the problems caused by human factors.
