News

Toyo Tire & Rubber Co. Ltd. (Kenji Nakakura, President) announces the launch of “NANOENERGY ZERO,” a new  fuel efficient NANOENERGY brand product, which will be introduced for sales on July 2, 2012. Toyo Tires has developed a leading edge fuel efficient tire¹ which has achieved the highest grade under the JATMA Tire Labeling System², both in rolling resistance coefficient and wet grip performance.

Even in Japan, which leads the world in the widespread use of fuel efficient tires, this will be the first time³ that a tire will be presented to the market which has achieved such pinnacle in environmental performance, with a rolling resistance performance of “AAA” grade and wet grip performance of “a” grade.

NANOENERGY is Toyo Tire’s new fuel efficient tire brand, which makes use of “Nano Balance Technology,” Toyo Tire’s proprietary advanced foundational material design technology, which manages the development of the tire’s rubber materials at the nano-level.

At the present, Toyo Tires has been working to build a full line of high quality fuel efficient tire products, starting with NANOENERGY 1, introduced for sales in February 2012, which was the first tire ever to achieve “AAA” rolling resistance and “b” wet grip performance in Japan. This was followed in June 2012 by the introduction for sales of NANOENERGY 2, which achieved “AAA” rolling resistance and “c” wet grip performance.

Toyo Tires further plans to launch both products in Europe in October 2012.

Until now, a technological innovation was being sought, to enhance the braking performance during ordinary driving on wet and dry road surfaces one step further, while maintaining the highest “AAA” level that had already been achieved in rolling resistance.

Through the application of Nano Balance Technology, optimizing the management of materials mixing to a high dimension, allowing for higher precision in design and incorporating innovations in processing, Toyo was able to develop NANOENERGY ZERO, which has achieved the highest standards both in gripping force (braking performance) and rolling resistance performance.

This tire will be introduced to the Japan market immediately as the flagship product in the NANOENERGY series.

■ Product Launch

[Notes]

1 “ Fuel Efficient Tire” is a tire which has which has the symbol to indicate that it is a fuel efficient tire, with a rolling resistance coefficient grading of “A” or better, and wet grip performance grading of between “a” ~ “d” range.

2 “Tire Labeling System” is a labeling system established by the Japan Automobile Tyre Manufacturers Association (JATMA) as the industry’s self-imposed standard for labeling, in order to provide proper information to the consumers, as well as to define as “ Fuel Efficient Tires” those tires that meet certain levels of both rolling resistance performance and wet grip performance. For further information, please visit JATMA’s homepage at http://www.jatma.or.jp/

3 First time in Japan. This is assumed as of the launch date of June 27, 2012.