HANOVER, Germany—Continental A.G. has begun marking passenger tire lines it sells in Europe with an "EV-Compatible" symbol, signifying that Continental feels every single tire in its current product range already meets the exacting requirements of electric cars.
"We are convinced that there is no one tire for all electric vehicles," Enno Straten, head of strategy, analytics and marketing for Continental Tires EMEA, said.
"This is why we have optimized our entire tire portfolio for this drive type too. With our new EV-Compatible logo, we are making that visible. Our customers can count on the fact that tires from Continental are always the right choice—and, of course, that applies to electric cars too."
Rather than develop tires specifically for EVs, Conti instead points to its work over the past several years to reduce tires' rolling resistance and rolling noise and optimize high service life, without limiting or compromising safety.
Reducing a tire's rolling resistance by one rolling resistance class according to the EU tire label increases the range of the EVs by around 3 percent to 4 percent, Conti claims while also improving mileage for vehicles with conventional drive types.
Pursuing this strategy of marking all passenger tires as EV compatible also offers tire dealers advantages by not adding complexity to the product portfolio, Conti said, thereby simplifying the processes involved in selection, ordering, stocking up and logistics.
Conti backed up it EV strategy by pointing out that 9 our 10 of the most successful EV makers rely on Continental, including models from Mercedez-Benz A.G., Porsche A.G. and Tesla Inc.
