VTI project with Volvo to reduce wear and emissions

Fyra bildäck mot svart bakgrund.

Photo: Mostphotos

How can electric vehicle manufacturers optimise their vehicles to reduce tyre wear and thus particulate emissions? A new research project where VTI is collaborating with Volvo Cars is aiming to find out.

Electric vehicles generally wear tyres more quickly than fossil-fuelled vehicles as they are heavier and have more powerful motors. Road surface wear is also on the increase. This is causing higher emissions of microplastics and other airborne particles, a serious environmental problem with a largely unknown impact on human health.

As vehicle fleets switch from fossil fuels to electricity, and problems caused by carbon dioxide and other exhaust emissions decline, greater focus is being placed on these particulate emissions. New legal requirements, including limits for different tyres, are expected to be implemented going forward.

In this new project, which is being funded by the Swedish Electromobility Centre, VTI and Volvo Cars will be developing ways to measure how tyre wear is affected by a range of vehicle-specific characteristics. Such characteristics may include the weight of the car, the motor (battery or hybrid), two- or four-wheel drive and different driving modes such as Eco and Sport.

These methods can then be used to tune and design vehicles to reduce tyre wear and emissions to a minimum.

“Weight and motor power are problems, but that said it is relatively easy to monitor electric vehicles quickly and with high accuracy. This means that there should be good opportunities to influence tyre wear,” says Mats Gustafsson, a senior researcher at VTI who will be leading the new project.

“Who knows, maybe in future EVs will come with a ‘reduce tyre wear’ button. Maybe there will be a driving mode that coincides with ‘Eco’, but that remains to be seen.”

The model for wear calculations will be developed following practical trials at VTI’s tyre testing facility in Linköping and on chassis dynamometers at Volvo Cars in Gothenburg. Tests will also be conducted at the Volvo test track in Hällered to validate the model and examine the impact of vehicle weight and two- and four-wheel drive.

Tyre wear and tyre particle emissions from electric vehicles is a two-year project.

Translation: CBG

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