The Conti CityPlus is a particularly energy-efficient concept tire that Continental Tires presented for the first time at the IAA MOBILITY 2023 in Munich. With the Conti CityPlus technology, the premium tire manufacturer is demonstrating how the energy efficiency of a tire in city traffic can be further increased under real driving conditions.

In doing so, the developers have gone beyond conventional rolling resistance optimization and made additional modifications that ensure greater energy efficiency of the tire.

Rolling resistance optimization plays a major role in tire development. This is because reduced rolling resistance has a measurably positive effect on the environment. It helps to reduce the energy consumption of a vehicle, which increases the range of electric vehicles or reduces the CO2 emissions of vehicles with internal combustion engines.

City traffic is characterized by constant stop-and-go traffic. This leads to torsional deformations of the tires in response to the torque, which consumes additional energy. The technology of the Conti CityPlus was developed to improve overall energy efficiency in these driving situations.

Continental has succeeded in increasing the energy efficiency of the tire by up to ten percent with the same rolling resistance, which corresponds to an improvement in the range of electric vehicles by up to three percent in an urban driving cycle. This corresponds to a saving of 0.6 kWh/100km.

It is already possible today to use parts of the technologies integrated in the concept tire for test purposes in certain tire sizes. We are also looking at how we can extend the technologies to other tire lines and sizes in the coming years. 

The concept tire demonstrates the high level of material expertise of Continental's tire engineers and materials experts and their holistic approach to optimizing tire energy efficiency.