Michelin has released 14 new sizes of its revolutionary tire — the MICHELIN® Premier® A/S. The tire is now available for more than 85 percent of the passenger vehicle segment in 54 total sizes ranging from 15 to 19 inches.
The MICHELIN® Premier® A/S tire features innovative EverGrip™ technology, which includes an evolving tread design and high-traction rubber compound to deliver exceptional levels of wet grip and enhanced long-lasting performance even as the tire tread wears down.
The MICHELIN® Premier® A/S tire represents breakthrough technology by extending excellent wet-braking and wet-traction performance to the end of a properly maintained tire’s useful service life. The Premier A/S design provides confidence over time when driving on wet roads —a combination of hidden grooves in the shoulder that emerge as the tire tread wears down; expanding rain grooves that widen over time, allowing consistent water evacuation; and a unique rubber compound that delivers enhanced all-season wet-grip performance.
Even when half-worn, the MICHELIN® Premier® A/S tire still stops shorter on wet roads than leading competitors’ brand-new tires.1 The Premier® A/S with EverGrip provides drivers with shorter stopping and better handling in wet conditions when new and worn compared to similar competing tires. Because of this, the MICHELIN® Premier® A/S tire is known as the tire that is “safe when new, safe when worn.”2
Michelin has opened a dialogue about the importance of worn tire testing for consumers. Recently at the North American International Auto Show, Michelin illustrated the financial and environmental impacts of premature removal for worn tires, explaining that a tire’s stopping abilities and other performances can change significantly as it wears.
Currently, the industry tests performances only for new tires; however, those attributes change as tires wear over time, meaning consumers make purchase decisions based on factors that become less and less relevant the more they drive on the tires. Michelin’s goal is to help drivers understand the importance of worn tire performance, and demonstrate that some well-maintained worn tires deliver wet-braking distances that are about the same or better than other new tires.
Making tires that deliver good safety performance (as measured by wet braking) over time has significant environmental and financial benefits. Removing well-maintained tires prematurely increases the average driver’s tire budget by 40% and also costs drivers more than $25 billion globally, resulting from increased fuel consumption and unnecessary tire purchases, according to independent research by EY. Early tire removal also wastes roughly 400 million tires a year worldwide, a massive impact on landfills and other end-of-life disposal networks.
Michelin offers a limited 60,000-mile warranty on the Premier® A/S. The tire is manufactured in North America at Michelin plants in Lexington and Greenville, S.C., Ardmore, Okla., and Pictou County and Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.
Sizes Launching March 2018: