Kommiefornia did it again...
California regulators on Monday approved new rules that will restrict what tires you can buy when it’s time to replace them on your car.
In a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission voted to adopt new rules that will phase out the sale of replacement tires that don’t meet certain energy efficiency standards.
“This ultimately is about protecting consumers,” said David Hochschild, the chairman of the California Energy Commission. “I see this as sheltering the public from higher costs in the long run.”
Tire manufacturers and the commission’s staff are at odds over whether this will add to the cost of living in the state. Both sides acknowledged this will no longer allow the sale of a significant portion of the tires currently sold in California.
Full article, HERE from KCRA Sacramento.
BLUF- The California Energy Commission has acknowledged that the state will no longer allow the sale of 70% of tires currently sold in California by 2033, a statement Goodyear made in the original version of this story.
This is yet again a ‘good idea’ that is going to cost folks LOTS of money, and limit choices even more than they are now...
It’s all about ‘rolling resistance’ on the road, e.g. a harder tire compound that lowers the rolling resistance as the car goes down the road.
But...
They do more damage to the roadway (see HOV lanes on 395 into DC), and do not handle wet roads well (can you say spin outs, sliding rather than braking, etc.).
I can’t find the article now, but in the mid 2005ish time frame they did a test on which vehicle did more damage to the roadway, a Prius or a full sized SUV. The Prius did due to the hard tires (low rolling resistance for high mileage)...
And now they are going to do the same thing in Kommiefornia, where the roads already suck, and are only going to get worse!
And I’m betting they ‘hope’ to get this pushed nationwide, so they can force the tire manufacturers to bow to their will.
I’m sorry, but if I ran a major tire manufacturer, I’d say you can buy what we make, or we will go elsewhere. We are not going to bend a knee to you.
Ronnie Barrett did it with the MK-82 after they outlawed .50 cal rifles out there, and he pulled all his business and maintenance from all of California, including the departments that had bought MK-82s! And strangely enough, his sales went up!
Whodathunkit???
California, at 760 miles north to south, has such a variety of climates that the 30% or so of available tires is insufficient to handle all of the driving conditions. What will work in Los Angeles is not going to be useful in the Sierra Nevada mountains. People are going to die if they are being forced to use a product that isn't designed for the environment in which it is being used. It would seem to me that this directly falls under the purview of the NTSB and the Supremacy Clause should apply. Hopefully someone at that agency will tell Newsome and his ilk that energy efficiency isn't the only criteria that matters.
I seem to recall someone saying that these tires don't last as long either? Which would mean you're getting tires more often, if true. But of course the big thing is going to be all of the dead people as we see an increase in motor vehicle accidents. A -REALLY- big increase. So more wrecks, more insurance claims, more people losing money, more deaths.
Eventually they'll be forced to lower speed limits, especially when it's raining, and less companies will offer collision insurance, that or the premiums will go sky high.