Cambered Tires Can Improve Fuel Economy

thecarchik writes with an excerpt from Green Car Reports: "We already know that it's possible to curb your fuel consumption just by having your tires properly inflated, or better yet, installing a set of low rolling-resistance tires, however, soon there may be an additional avenue to look at when picking the most fuel efficient rubber for your ride. The answer is the camber of your tires, more specifically, the negative camber. This is when the tops of your car's tires are angled inwards towards the chassis. Of course, there are negative effects too — namely increased tire wear and impaired ride quality — which is why production cars almost always have zero camber." The linked article, as well as the New York Times article from which it draws, describe a new tire which is designed to minimize those negative effects.

Comments

Re:How?

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Wow, a few seconds on google and I found something that contradicts your statement about camber.

The amounts of camber gain varies from car to car, team to team and even by the engineer’s philosophy on suspension set-up.

and

Pushing the bodywork down (such as when the wings develop down-force) compresses the suspension, and if the car has a camber gain curve, the camber angle will increase. This change in camber may be desirable during high speed cornering

Found this here.

Since your such the expert perhaps you would care to summarize the article for us?

Re:Skinny tires

[Joce640k]

Yes.

(But you also lose braking/cornering ability...not that American car designers seem overly-concerned with that - I think they only put big tires on American cars because consumers prefer them).