News

Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. is pleased to announce that we will be launching our first tires designed for electric vehicles (EV) this April in China, where the market for EV is now booming. Our new DUNLOP “e. SPORT MAXX” tires for EV rank among the most fuel (energy) efficient tires that the Sumitomo Rubber Group has ever made. In addition, we are also planning to release FALKEN “e. ZIEX” in 2023 as our first replacement EV tires for Europe, where the market for EV is also growing at a brisk pace.

In developing tires for EV, we focused in particular on pursuing the best possible performance in terms of fuel (energy) efficiency and noise reduction. EV in particular require tires with lower rolling resistance for improved electric mileage so that EV can travel farther on a single charge. By drawing upon our advanced materials development technology to fine-tune rubber compounds, we succeeded in developing tires that not only rank among our most fuel (energy) efficient tires to date, but also balance this with superior wet performance and steering stability.
Meanwhile, as EV engines do not produce noise, it is often said that noise from tires and the road becomes much more prominent with EV. However, thanks to our proprietary SILENT CORE (specialized noise-absorbing sponges), our EV tires provide a superior level of quietness. At the same time, the tires themselves are also lighter than conventional tires and so contribute to resource savings as well as a lower overall environmental impact.

In addition to outstanding performance, we also set out to give “e. SPORT MAXX” tires an eye-catching design, utilizing our proprietary “Nano Black^*1” design technique to produce sidewall logos in deeper, more vivid shades of black. In this way, our new EV tires respond to the diverse needs of EV users while boasting some of our best ever performance in terms of fuel (energy) efficiency.
 
In recent years, the global market for EV has been growing at an extraordinary pace in keeping with rising environmental awareness worldwide. Amid this backdrop, the Chinese Government and the European Commission have both set ambitious targets for EV adoption rates and the reduction of CO₂ emissions, making China and the EU leading markets for EV. In light of these market conditions, the Sumitomo Rubber Group has decided to introduce our first replacement tires for EV in China this spring. We are planning to follow this up with the launch of new EV tires for Europe in 2023, after which we will be expanding our EV tire offerings in other regions one after another. 

In August 2021, the Sumitomo Rubber Group unveiled our new Long-Term Sustainability Policy, “Driving Our Future Challenge 2050^*2,” as the next evolution of our longstanding efforts to tackle environmental issues head on. The release of “e. SPORT MAXX” represents a major step in the development of products that are in line with this policy while also bringing us one step closer to our goal of achieving carbon neutrality by improving the electric mileage of EV while reducing the amount of resources that we use in our tires.

*1 (News Release Issued on August 31, 2021) Announcing “Nano Black,” a New Design Technique for Deeper Black Sidewall Coloring to Improve the Visibility & Appearance of Tire Logos, etc.
*2 (News Release Issued on August 5, 2021) Sumitomo Rubber Establishes Long-Term Sustainability Policy: “Driving Our Future Challenge 2050”