On Friday, April 24, 2026, the California Energy Commission issued its proposed new tire regulations for tires sold in California. The new regulations would require passenger car and light truck tires to meet a maximum rolling resistance level which varies by tire category in 2 phases. The first phase is slated for January 1, 2028, and the second phase on January 1, 2031. The new regulations include a minimum wet grip level.
In addition to the tire requirements, tire manufacturers (or brand name owners) would be required to submit data to the CEC on all tires that meet the regulations. Data would include rolling resistance, wet grip level, and enough information to uniquely identify the tire. A database is planned to be available to the public.
I foresee many Californians buying tires in Nevada or Arizona on weekend trips that can no longer be purchased in California. And replacement OEM tires installed on performance cars, like my Mach 1, that can no longer meet the regs. Plus autocross, time trial, club racing and track day enthusiasts like myself that desire tires that cannot meet these regs.
I foresee a resurgence of retreaded tires on the market in California because we all know most people buy replacement tires by price. And every one of these regs will increase the price because of the cost of compliance in administrative, logistics, engineering and manufacturing labor. I suspect the cheap Chinese tires will still be sold since they will just fabricate the data unless verification (at added cost) by a 3rd party is required.
There’s a 3 way technological triangle involving rolling resistance, traction, especially wet traction, and treadwear. Improve one area, and one or both of the others have to be sacrificed.
EXCEPT
Improvements in technology can change that relationship - and while it is still true (in my opinion), the exact balance can be readjusted so that it there is an improvement in one area, without a sacrifice in the other.
I think the latest version addresses all of your concerns.
The regs divide tires into different categories, and the regs are different for each category -/ such that each category is only slightly affected. In other words, only the worst offenders would be banned.
Plus, tires with less than 15,000 units per year are exempt. I think that covers all time-trial, etc tires.
As far as costs go, all the tire manufacturers already do all that testing. The administrative costs are fairly small by comparison to the total cost of the tire itself - much like the cost of advertising. There is likely to be a small increase in cost, but not enough to justify a trip to another state to get a better price.
Doesn’t that start down the slippery slope of telling other people what to do with their money?
I’ve had people counting out crumpled $5 bills to see if they could afford a new tire, I’ve had people decide between groceries and a tire, I’ve had people take off to the used tire shop because they didn’t have money for a new one. Would you prefer that minivan drives away on that temporary spare for another 2 weeks or drives away on a new tire?
Sometimes the right tire for the car and the customer is one that’s round and holds air.
Back in the 60s Firestone would sell retreads four for $100 or two for $50. It was what I could afford and bought four and then two snow tires for the winter. Funny but I never had any problem with them.
I would caution folks who support this kind of intrusion on personal choice to think of the frog in the frying pan. Little by little unnoticed and justified in their minds until it’s too late.
I have. And I have no problem with most of these regulations. In fact when I was a elected town official I lobbied for some of them.
Well over 99% of all regulations are to solve a problem. I surely wouldn’t want to live anywhere with no regulations. It took us DECADES to pass enough regulations to start healing our planet (at least the small part we live in - United States). There are enough corporations and people who don’t want to do the right thing on their own that need to be regulated. We have well over 200 years of evidence to back that up.
Yes. And as a result I have to remove the flow restrictors from every faucet and showerhead I install.
But back to the tires, I oppose the idea because I can’t get behind the idea of removing a safe and affordable tire from a customer’s choice because of a LRR requirement. Why not post the LRR ratings and let the buyer decide what’s best for them?
When I had my own small shop I would keep good take-offs around, not to sell for a big profit but for cases like that.
I would think that the California Tire Fee (that is supposedly intended to pay the California Tire Recycling Management Fund) is more often than not deposited into the General Fund might see a drop in revenue if the folks start taking “weekend trips” to adjoining states to buy tires.
I would not be surprised to see California implement a Special Safety Program (like their Smog Testing…) to ensure that Californians are driving on the “Safest Tires” and to ensure their Tax Coffers stay full… (Ka-Ching…)
Well yeah, good intentions and all, like DEF that is a proven flop. Or that sd farmer that now has a wet land because a creek sometimes runs through the field. A friend owned the building that the credit union leases. He wanted to sell and they wanted to buy but 50 years ago a gas station had been there. Cost him thousands to dig up the lot to prove it was not contaminated. No point everyone listing their favorite. Like our law professor said there has never been a law that someone didn’t want.
How long ago was this? We have a company here right over the border from me in MA that does soil testing for contamination. They do not and have not EVER dug up the ground to see if the soil is contaminated. There are noninvasive ways that are EXTREMELY ACCURATE in detecting ground contamination. A brief review of non-invasive soil assessment approaches - ScienceDirect
The reason why not is because many people know or care little about tires and purchase solely on price, ignoring any other consideration including quality and safety. As a worst case I saw one client purchase a bunch of “Chinese” tires (such a great price!) for their fleet of work vans only to discover that the vans then handled in the wet like a pig on roller skates and then developed sidewall bulges in their first 5,000 miles.
Back in the '70s, before there were any real government standards for tire safety, there were made-in-India tires sold in the US that had “voids” in the sidewall (gaps between the rubber and the tire’s carcass) that were–literally–deadly.
