Strasbourg, 25/11/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 25, the European Parliament in plenary session in Strasbourg approved, without a vote, the compromise reached at the start of October between the energy committee, chaired by Ivo Belet (EPP, Belgium), and the Swedish Presidency of the Council on the draft regulation on the labelling of tyres, thereby paving the way for a system to be put in place that will ensure the marketing of tyres that are higher performance in terms of energy, safer and quieter, by means of harmonised and easy to understand information for consumers.
With effect from 1 November 2012, all new tyres sold in Europe will be classified and labelled for fuel efficiency, wet grip and noise performance. Like the energy labelling system for energy consuming products, such as household goods, tyre labelling will set out performances by means of a scale from “A” (“green”, environmentally friendly products) to “G” (“red”, poor energy performance) goods. Besides indicating how much the tyre affects the car's fuel consumption, the regulation will require manufacturers to indicate on C1, C2 and C3 tyres (for private cars, light utility vehicles and heavy goods vehicles respectively) how well they grip in the wet and external rolling noise. Re-tread tyres, off-road professional tyres and racing tyres will be exempt from this requirement. All C1 and C2 tyres produced after 1 July 2012 must either have a sticker or have a label when distributed from the factory to a shop or a garage. The Commission will set specific conditions for snow tyres. Tyre retailers will be required, before making a sale, to draw consumers' attention to the label and also on, or with, bills.
To promote very quiet tyres, Parliament negotiated a re-design of the noise pictogram. The level of external rolling noise will be indicated by ascending numbers of black “waves” emitted from the “speaker”. Quiet tyres for cars (producing noise below 68 decibels), for example, will be labelled with one black and two white “waves” next to the value in decibels.
Potential incentives to promote better-performing tyres to consumers are to be decided at national level. In principle, member states will be allowed to provide incentives only for tyres ranked at least class C on fuel efficiency and wet grip. (E.H./transl.rt)