Michelin North America, Inc. introduced the Agilis CrossClimate tire designed for light trucks and commercial van applications.The tire is designed to address the needs of suburban and urban fleets focused on local delivery, temperature-controlled food and beverage delivery, and trades applications.
Available April 1, Michelin will offer 21 sizes with 16 LT Metric tire options available for light trucks, and five C Metric sizes designed for the commercial delivery van segment.
Addressing needs of the market
Growth of delivery, ecommerce and construction has driven the need for additional options for these fleets. In addition to that, Adam Murphy, vice president of marketing for Michelin advised there is a major infrastructure investment anticipated which will fuel the trades activity.
Murphy said Michelin aimed to service the commercial delivery van market because there are more than 2 million commercial delivery van tires in the market currently, with a projection of more than 50 percent short-term growth in this segment. This is primarily driven due to urban delivery and construction.
The new tires are designed for durability with protection from curb and road debris damage, traction for wet and snowy conditions, and overall safety especially with heavy loads. The tire line is designed to provide full-load optimized traction in winter climates.
New tire technology
Primary focus is to provide an all-weather solution with exceptional traction, especially under full loads. The Agilis CrossClimate tire provides a number of new technology features from Michelin, including:
- Max Pressure casing. The tire is designed to be heavily loaded for intense pressure. “That’s the condition it loves the best, and wears the best," says Murphy.
- Curbgard sidewall protection. Originally designed for light tactical use for U.S. fleets, this technology reinforces the sidewall for additional durability.
- Stabiliblok Technology. With longer and wider tread blocks, the CrossClimate tire resists extreme torque while providing cool operating temperatures under full load and at high speed.
- Sidelock. Locking sipes provide hundreds of billing edges for snow traction without sacrificing tread block stability.
In addition, the C-Metric series also features a new tread wear indicator built within the groove of the tire casing, to easily read a percentage of the tread remaining. Murphy advises this feature provides two key benefits to fleets: they will know when it's time to replace the tire, and it will provide optimized use by allowing fleets to get the most out of the tread wear. As far as design on the tire, the tread wear feature is located about every 10 tread blocks on the tire. Uneven tread wear may also be determined if percentage of wear is not equal across the tire.
Murphy says the feature may likely be rolled out to additional tire lines for Michelin in the future.
