Why are big singletons "acclimatized" in China?

Nowadays, with the rapid development of the transportation and logistics industry, the volume of freight continues to increase, and various measures that can reduce dead weight, save fuel and reduce consumption are also emerging one after another, which has been sought after by many car companies and car owners. But there is one example; the large single tire, which is lighter and more fuel-efficient than the traditional twin tires, has not been popularized on trailers. What is the reason?

Large single tires generally refer to ultra-wide tires with a cross-sectional width of 425mm and 445mm, which can replace two 12R22.5 or 295/80R22.5 standard tires. In this way, only one tire needs to be installed on each side of the trailer axle. Taking a three-axle semi-trailer as an example, there were originally 12 tires, but after replacing them with large single tires, there are only 6 tires, which is reduced by half.

According to relevant calculations, the weight of a large single tire can be about 22% lighter than that of ordinary twin tires. Not only that, the contact area between the large single tire and the road surface is also smaller than that of ordinary twin tires, which is reduced by about 28%. If it is matched with low rolling resistance tires, the rolling resistance can be reduced by about 20%, so there are obvious advantages in fuel saving.

Although from these perspectives, large single tires do save money and fuel, but in practical applications, other problems have arisen, which is why large single tires have not been popularized for a long time:

1. The price is high. The high price of large single tires is not because of immature production technology. At present, only some high-end aluminum alloy trailers in China are equipped with large single tires as standard, and some of them directly choose imported large single tires, which leads to the low market demand for domestic large single tires. Therefore, many rim and tire companies are unwilling to invest too much productivity in manufacturing large single tires. Rare things are more expensive. Compared with ordinary tires, the price of large single tires will naturally be higher.

2. It is difficult to maintain. As far as the weight of a single tire is concerned, the weight of a large single tire generally exceeds 130kg, and it is difficult for the owner to complete the replacement alone, so the convenience of maintenance is not as good as that of ordinary twin tires. In addition, the interchangeability of large single tires is poor. The front and rear tires cannot be interchanged, and special tires must be used. However, many repair shops do not always have large single tires. If there is no stock, they cannot change tires.

3. Not suitable for going down the road. Compared with the high-speed road, the road conditions on the down road are more complicated. Once there is a problem with the tire, in the case of twin tires, the other tire can barely support the driving to the maintenance station, and the single tire may be scrapped directly. Let alone driving at a slow speed, it is not a small test to be able to stop the car smoothly when the tire has problems.

4. The road contact area is small. Although this feature can make large single tires more fuel-efficient and energy-saving, it also reduces the friction between the tires and the road to a certain extent, especially when encountering rainy and snowy roads, the tires are prone to skidding, idling or locking and skidding, which has adverse effects on driving and braking.

5. High requirements for trailer axle matching. Some car owners think that replacing a large single tire only needs to replace the tire, but it is actually not that simple. We all know that the wheelbase is an important parameter for vehicle handling and stability. If a large single tire is directly installed on the ordinary twin-tire axle, it is easy to cause the wheelbase of the vehicle to be abnormal. Therefore, if you want to switch to large single tires, you must use axle housings, tire mounting surfaces, and stress points that fully match the axles. For example, Shandong DARO specially made trailer axles for large single tires on trailers.

On the whole, the main advantages of large single tires lie in their weight and fuel economy. Although there are many problems in practical application, they affect the experience of car owners to a certain extent. But still the same sentence, it is meaningless to talk about performance regardless of the application scenario. If the application scenario can be fully matched, the large single tire can also exert good economic performance.