Tyre News

Electric car tyres and tyres designed to offer greater fuel efficiency contain some of the tyre industry’s most advanced technology. Supporting fast growth in primarily battery-powered electric cars as well as car-maker’s legal obligation to produce more fuel-efficient combustion powered vehicles, tyre manufacturers have developed increasingly eco-friendly products for original fitment. More electric cars on the road means more demand for replacement tyres that perform similarly well. Our nominations process for this category set very high expectations for such products. We demanded comparatively high fuel efficiency and low noise alongside performance and safety characteristics in one of three sizes for Europe’s top-selling electric cars.

The UK tyre market’s interest in winter tyres may not be high, but there are many excellent products available, as WhatTyre’s list of “Commended” winter tyre products proves. While the UK’s moderate winter climate, the need to store a spare set of tyres (and wheels) year-round, the inconvenience of a seasonal tyre change twice a year, and the increasing quality of all-season tyres are all understandable reasons for not fitting winter tyres, the fact remains that if we are considering performance and safety above all else, specialist winter tyres will help you get the most out of your car when temperatures drop. Below, we crown our 2021 winner, and run down the other models we highly recommend.

When looking at the 13 nominees for our What Tyre summer Tyre of the Year category, it quickly became apparent that our TyreScore had done its job superbly. It also serves us well when identifying the category finalists, all of which bring together high levels of performance, safety and economy/mileage in various combinations. Our five finalists are taken from the three top summer tyre sizes in the UK (205/55 R16, 225/45 R17, 195/55 R15), and we set a TyreScore of 8 as a minimum prerequisite. A test win or a recommendation of ‘good’ or better in a 2020/21 tyre test is also a must have.

All-season tyres are growing in popularity on the UK and European roads so, following the announcement of our WhatTyre all-season tyre of the year nominations, we are excited as anyone to learn the identities of the top five tyres in our database of over 250,000 variations.

It is now time to name the finalists for the WhatTyre UHP Tyre of the Year, and again we’re looking at the popular sizes 245/45 R18, 245/35 R19, 265/35 R20 in Y or higher speed ratings. We have added the requirement that our finalists should have at least one original equipment approval to their name – car makers have exacting requirements when selecting OEM tyres, and manufacturer approval thus serves as a useful barometer of tyre competence and quality.

Following the unveiling of the first WhatTyre SUV Tyre of the Year nominees earlier this month, the time has come to name the finalists. In order to identify the best of the best, we entered the top three SUV tyre sizes (235/60 R18; 215/55 R18; and 215/60 R17) into our unique comparison engine in order to filter the database of a quarter of a million variations down to the most relevant products. Our system boils down all the legally-required European tyre label performance data as well as our library of third-party magazine test cross-references into a single figure.