Kommiefornia did it again…
California regulators on Monday approved new rules that will restrict what tires you can buy when it’s time to replace them on your car.
In a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission voted to adopt new rules that will phase out the sale of replacement tires that don’t meet certain energy efficiency standards.
Tire manufacturers and the commission’s staff are at odds over whether this will add to the cost of living in the state. Both sides acknowledged this will no longer allow the sale of a significant portion of the tires currently sold in California.
Full article, HERE from KCRA Sacramento.
BLUF- The California Energy Commission has acknowledged that the state will no longer allow the sale of 70% of tires currently sold in California by 2033, a statement Goodyear made in the original version of this story.
This is yet again a ‘good idea’ that is going to cost folks LOTS of money, and limit choices even more than they are now…
It’s all about ‘rolling resistance’ on the road, e.g. a harder tire compound that lowers the rolling resistance as the car goes down the road.
But…
They do more damage to the roadway (see HOV lanes on 395 into DC), and do not handle wet roads well (can you say spin outs, sliding rather than braking, etc.).
I can’t find the article now, but in the mid 2005ish time frame they did a test on which vehicle did more damage to the roadway, a Prius or a full sized SUV. The Prius did due to the hard tires (low rolling resistance for high mileage)…
And now they are going to do the same thing in Kommiefornia, where the roads already suck, and are only going to get worse!
And I’m betting they ‘hope’ to get this pushed nationwide, so they can force the tire manufacturers to bow to their will.
I’m sorry, but if I ran a major tire manufacturer, I’d say you can buy what we make, or we will go elsewhere. We are not going to bend a knee to you.
Ronnie Barrett did it with the MK-82 after they outlawed .50 cal rifles out there, and he pulled all his business and maintenance from all of California, including the departments that had bought MK-82s! And strangely enough, his sales went up!
Whodathunkit???
“We are not going to bend a knee to you.”
If more companies would do this with regards to California, it’d help stop their nonsense. Unfortunately, profit is king, and California is a huge market that companies aren’t willing to let go of.
Classic monkey trap, but we’re the ones that feel the painful outcome of the monkey getting netted.
I bet 99% of the tires typically used for off-pavement will be axed.
Rural people screwed again
So there will end up being a black market in tires, or the tire dealers in NV, AZ and OR close to the CA border will have a sizable increase in business. But CA will then start trying to regulate the tires non residents have on their cars when they visit CA.
The issue is that the market is so large in Califronica that the manufacturers always fold
I love when the statists want to do something to screw the average Joe, is always for the protection of the “public.”
“This ultimately is about protecting consumers,” said David Hochschild, the chairman of the California Energy Commission.
Yep. Expect the opposite when they say this. Bend over and take your punishment.
If they were serious, they would have made the start date in 2027.
The CEC will have plenty of time to change their minds by 2033
Hey Old NFO,
Something that people are missing….Unless I miss my guess…Cali requires annual inspections if memory serves….if people have “Naughty” tires on their vehicles past the 2033 date…watch it to be noted in the inspection report and if the tires appear to be “new” after that date, watch for “fees” and “Penalties”, to discourage to travel to neighboring states.
When I left California in 2022 they did not require inspections for new vehicles, only biennial emissions inspections for vehicles 8 years and older and nothing has changed (yet). This looks like a Lazy Man Tax, if you can’t or won’t take your vehicle over a boarder you will be limited to the Officially Approved Tires…
And people wonder why I refuse to return for any reason.
Anyway, the most sustainable and efficient route is to toss the scholars in ‘sustainable’ ‘responsible’ ‘efficiency’ from aviation platforms.
Political factions disburse money through government to buy nonsensical less accurate answers from scholars in order to enable grift.
The whole renewable energy thing looks like it might have always been a fraud in several ways.
And when it comes to the California influence on the automobile market, one’s mind naturally turns to the electric chair, the guillotine, adn the gallows. They are bad people doing bad things, perhaps to the degree and in a way that we should consider them to be the common enemy of all mankind.
Once again the morons in Kali are getting what they voted for.
My dude, the fraud hypothesis is not disproven.
Yeah, sure, the land of fruits and nuts has a lot of very crazy people who vote. Also, who sometimes fund activists and organizations.
However, a basic look at the official and unofficial processes might not give a great deal of confidence to election integrity in California.
Nobody voted for her or her fellow board members. They have all appointed by the Governor, Skinner was appointed last year after being term-limited out of the legislature to the
‘Engineer/Scientist’ slot because she has a BS in conservation and resource studies from BerZerkly, where she still lives.
Interesting because the guy with a dual MS in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from Utah State is the ‘Public Member’
The ‘Environmental’ member has no environmental degrees..
She’s an old student radical from the 1960s and was a mover and shaker in the process by which the hard Left took over the Democrat Party in California. Unfortunately, she’s smart, hardworking and very well connected. That’s enabled her to do a lot of damage in her career.
The picture of her in the article made me think of a Soviet apparatchik of the worst kind. She wants only the best for you, so she wants to make it very expensive, inconvenient and unsafe for you to do anything but the things she thinks you should do.
I guess the psycotropics are only illegal for the masses.
As California goes, soon Colofornia will follow.I have personally driven 100,000 miles in a company Prius, summer and winter. Northern Colorado to Wyoming, to Nebraska and back to Colorado. Approximately 416 miles round trip. The only vehicle in memory that sucked more on snow packed roads was a 1962 Corvair van.Those low rolling resistant tires have little grip
Pro investment tip. Towing companies on Donner Pass.
All- No disagreement with ANY comments (other than the spam that I removed…again…sigh). WSF is the voice of experience here, so well worth listening to!
Rick- Yeah, I noticed that too…sigh…
So the question I have is what about all those rich folks with high-performance sports cars (ie the Hollywood Elite). Are they going to give up their Porsches, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, etc as well as most of the BMW/Mercedes/Lexus fleets? All of those ride on low profile “sticky” soft compound tires to get more out of their performance. Some of the high-end ones ride on tires so unique in pattern and make that each of the four tires is different (size and tread direction) and there is often only ONE manufacturer that makes the darn things. Pretty much every Z or V speed-rated tire is probably off the list. Even an ’89 Mustang rode on V rated Gatorbacks and even modern Civics and Corollas tend to ride on low-profile tires with softer compounds compared to cars of the past.
Honestly, this is just another way for the powers that be to get us out of the cars they hate, which give us the mobility they so despise.
The analysis I saw was that the car had to stay on original equipment tires or ones with lower rolling resistance than OEM so the rich (who can afford tires at any price point) can keep their Z-rated gumballs while the rest of the schlubs are required to buy harder tires with less tread depth more often.
That is some sneaky law writing there. Oftentimes the OEM tires for lower end hardware (say a Civic or Corolla) are junk to keep the price down on the lower end models. Even my 89 Mustang example with the Goodyear Gatorbacks (aka Skater backs, they were a nightmare in the wet) had to go from late October to late April as New England has this thing called snow and the OEM Gatorbacks couldn’t cope with more than a dusting (and even that was VERY exciting). That law really makes it clear the legislators are out to screw the hoi polloi and MAKE them use public transit. The Aristoi get bomb around in their various vehicles on OEM tires.
Tregonsee- Any bets there will be ‘exceptions’ for friends with money???
Rick- Most OEM tires will fail their new rolling resistance requirement… I’m betting there will be folks that go out of state to get ‘regular’ tires and just put the LRR tires on for inspection. I know when I was out there, we just ‘reset’ our ECMs back to stock for inspection, then put it back to the modified one that was actually better and more HP afterward, and that was in the late 90s!
I had a friend who drove an…interesting Porsche as his daily driver. He had a spare motor to swap in for when he had to get it smogged.
Oregon, “watch this.” Washington, “hold my beer.”
Another California government agency begging to be shut down.