The rules apply only to passenger car tires (C1), light truck tires (C2) and heavy duty vehicle tires (C3). The following categories are excluded from the scope:

· retreaded tire

· professional off-road tires

· racing tires

· studded tires

· temporary-use spare tires

· tires designed to be fitted on vehicles registered for the first time before 1 October 1990

· tires with a speed rating of less than 80 km/h

· tires with a nominal rim diameter that does not exceed 254 mm or is 635 mm or more

The European Commission will start work to develop a harmonised fuel saving calculator which could eventually be posted on each manufacturers’ websites, to calculate fuel savings and compare products.

There are plans to introduce labeling requirements to retread tires; however this will be decided after an impact assessment is performed by the European Commission. The Commission will present the result of this assessment by no later than March 2016.

POR tires are specially designed to reach exceptional performance levels in poor conditions and on all terrain, which means that they cannot be measured by regulatory thresholds and grading levels.

It is the responsibility of the national market surveillance authorities to evaluate compliance with declared classifications. The verification procedures are described below in Annex IV of the regulation.

A limit is the minimum acceptable performance level for a tire to be authorized on the European market. A grading will give the performance level under defined testing conditions of the tire based on its rolling resistance, its braking capacity on wet surfaces and its external noise emission.

Wet grip refers to the safety performance of tires: it reflects the capacity of a tire to brake on a wet road. There are other parameters which are relevant for safety (e.g. road holding ability, directional control, deceleration ability on wet and dry surfaces at higher speed, aquaplaning behavior) but wet grip was identified as the most important safety factor in Europe.

There are many different tire characteristics that affect the rolling resistance (RR) of a tire. The RR can be adjusted by modifying certain of these characteristics, but some of them can also have a negative impact on wet grip. The tire development engineer must make these adjustments to achieve the optimum balance for RR and wet grip.  If tire RR limits are lowered too far, the wet grip performance could be adversely affected.

RR is a force acting in opposition to the direction of travel when a tire is rolling. Due to the vehicle load, the tire is deformed in the area in contact with the road surface. This deformation causes internal losses, just like a rubber ball hitting the ground that does not bounce back as high as it was launched.  tire RR can be expressed as a Force (Newton) or as a Coefficient (RRC). The rolling resistance coefficient is defined as RR force (N) divided by the tire load. The advantage of the coefficient is that it allows easier comparison of tires designed to be fitted on different cars.

The vehicle engine has to provide a force to compensate for RR. This consumes fuel and so contributes to the vehicle fuel consumption. As a rule of thumb, reducing RR by 6% decreases fuel consumption by 1% for passenger cars. Many other factors contribute to vehicle fuel consumption:  Aerodynamics, vehicle weight, type of engine, auxiliary systems like air-conditioning, slope of the road, personal driving style, tire pressure level, accelerations or general traffic conditions.