Wide-base single tires have been in service for more than a decade, and Michelin says customer acceptance has never been stronger. Demand for the lighter, more fuel-efficient tires has grown exponentially in recent years, and Michelin believes customer acceptance has finally reached the tipping point.
Vic Koelsch, executive vice president of Michelin North America and COO of Michelin Americas Truck Tires, told Heavy Duty Trucking that demand for the tires suggests most prospective users are over their initial concerns about the product.
"We had an uphill battle in the early years, with bringing a totally new technology to market," Koelsch says. "We knew we had years slow growth ahead of us, but we believe now that investment is about to pay dividends. X One is now a proven technology, and we see demand for the product growing considerably as the new fuel economy regulations come into play. Customers will be looking for ways to reduce the tare weight of future trucks and lower fuel consumption. The X Ones do both."
Koelsch says the acceptance of X One tires by the Truck Blue Book as a product that adds value at resale was a significant milestone in the market acceptance of the tires.
"We never saw X Ones as a liability, obviously, but we understand some segments of the market are concerned about resale value," he says. "The Truck Blue Book announcement last fall said to us that enough fleets were thinking positively about the product to see than as an asset on a piece of pre-owned equipment."
The announcement by Truck Blue Book noted that it recognized market perception had changed.
"We strongly considered the factual fuel and weight savings that X One tires provide for a tractor," Terry Williams, managing editor for Truck Blue Book, said at the time. "After that, the decision to make them a value-added component was easy. Truck Blue Book recognizes value where it exists, and X One tires are valuable on used trucks."
At an S.2 - Tire and Wheel task force meeting held earlier this week at the TMC 2012 Annual Meeting and Technology Exposition, participants discussed irregular wear on wide-base single tires. The group concluded that spec'ing narrow track axles on trailers in order to have the flexibility of switching to dual tires at some point in the vehicle's service life was contributing to some irregular wear concerns. The task force -- in the process of updating a Recommended Practice dealing with reducing irregular tire wear -- said that with the tires gaining market acceptance, the need for backward-compatible axle specs to accommodate duals was fading, and irregular wear could be reduced by spec'ing wider axles, rather than relying on off-set wheels to maintain track width.
One by one, Michelin has put operator concerns to rest, Koelsch notes, and he sees the future of the X One as brighter than ever.
"We knew this was going to take time, and it appears than the hurdles are all but behind us now," he says. "We have more development plans in store for those tires, and while we're doing that, we'll be working to add customer value to our Commercial Service Network suite. We just celebrated the first anniversary of that program, and we're seeing solid growth in the network and improvements in the performance metrics. Customers are asking for solutions and we are prepared to deliver."
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