In warmer temperatures or when the road is clear, a layer allows the studs to retract.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
The most capable winter tires have studs embedded in their treads. It only makes sense – just as winter climbers need spikes in their boots to dig into snow and ice, studs in winter tires add significantly more grip on snowy, icy roads.
When the road is bare asphalt, however, the studs can chip the hard surface, damaging it prematurely and creating dust. They will provide no advantage and just make noise as their metal taps against the highway. For this reason, most provinces permit studded tires to be used only in winter months, and Ontario prohibits their ownership entirely in the heavily populated region south of Parry Sound and Nipissing districts, with a $1,000 fine for illegal use. Visitors to southern Ontario are allowed to use their studded tires for up to a month.
Now Nokian Tyre has developed a smart tire that will retract its studs in non-freezing weather and when on cold, dry asphalt. The Finnish company has been working on the process for more than a decade. These are not ice spikes powered by James Bond technology or even the push-button studs Nokian demonstrated on a concept tire in 2014. With that early concept, “each tire cost more than the Porsche it was on,” says Mikko Liukkula, Nokian’s tire development manager.
These new studded tires, called Hakkapeliitta 01, are the real thing and will be available in Canada in time for next winter. They won’t be cheap – Nokian has not yet announced a price, but the current studded Hakkapeliitta 10s cost around $220 at KAL Tire in a 16-inch size to fit a Honda Civic, and $263 in an 18-inch size to fit a Toyota RAV4. The new tires will be available in more than 100 sizes, from 14- to 22-inch.
A graphic provided by Nokian Tyre shows the studs on the new Hakkapeliitta 01 when they retract and when they don't.Courtesy of manufacturer
Though they share a similar, hard-to-spell name, the new Hakkapeliitta 01s have a distinct tread pattern with smaller blocks and are constructed differently.
Essentially, they have a band of special rubber compound that lies beneath the outer tread, called the adaptive base. This is what took the time to develop and which now has 10 patents protecting it: it is comparatively soft and pliable at temperatures above freezing and rock solid at freezing temperatures. The base of the stud sits against this layer and, in warmer temperatures, is pressed by the road into the soft compound and inside the tread. In colder temperatures, the layer becomes solid and pushes the stud out of the tread.
Testing the grip while going down a snow-covered hill at Nokian’s arctic test tracks in Finland.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
And when it’s cold but the road is clear?
“When you’re driving at 100 kilometres an hour, each individual stud will hit the road 14 times a second,” says Liukkula. “Every time (it hits) there is a small movement, which warms up the adaptive base, and so it will retract. And when you are driving on an ice-covered road, the stud will penetrate the ice, so it is not moving and warming the adaptive base.”
In these conditions, the studs will stay extended by about one millimetre, which is all that’s needed to create additional grip.
Each tire is fitted with at least 200 studs, depending on the tire size, and those studs, with rectangular-shaped heads, are placed in one direction in the centre of the tire tread to improve acceleration and braking, and at 90 degrees from that on the edges of the tread, to improve cornering.
The new Hakkapeliitta is called the 01 as a nod to computer binary code, where 0 is off and 1 is on – the studs are either off or on, depending on the road surface and Nokian says they react very quickly. I drove various cars here on Nokian’s arctic test tracks in Finland with the new studded tires fitted and the grip was certainly impressive. Nokian claims an improvement of up to 10 per cent in grip on ice over the Hakkapeliitta 10s with conventional studs, and I don’t doubt it.
Unfortunately, the weather was too cold and the conditions too snowy to drive with the studs retracted into the tread, to rate the tires’ road noise.
The tips of the retracted studs will extend to the surface of the tire, not actually absorbed deeper inside the rubber, but Nokian says the tires are actually up to one decibel quieter than the studded Hakkapeliitta 10s. Some sizes of tire (popular with quiet-running electric vehicles) will also be fitted with Nokian’s SilentDrive sound absorbing insulation. Presumably, they’ll be more expensive for it.
Testing the new Hakkapeliitta 01 at Nokian’s arctic test tracks in Finland.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
Nokian also claims the studded Hakkapeliitta 01s produce up to 30-per-cent less road wear than the studded Hakkapeliitta 10s, which will be phased out after this season. The company will try to convince governments that currently prohibit the use of studded tires to change their laws to accommodate the new technology.
“The law will change, of course, if you make (governments) aware that there are benefits, but, of course, it is their decision to change it,” says Paolo Pompei, chief executive officer of Nokian Tyres. “But we will try, as much as we can, to make them aware of the benefits of the specific solutions.”
The benefits, of course, being safer vehicles with much better grip on ice.
In Ontario, “The Ministry of Transportation currently allows studded tires on vehicles registered in Northern Ontario (the Territorial Districts of Algoma, Cochrane, Kenora, Manitoulin, Nipissing, Parry Sound, Rainy River, Sudbury, Timiskaming and Thunder Bay) from September 1 to May 31,” said MTO spokesperson Meaghan Evans in an e-mail.
“The province continues to review emerging tire technologies, and monitors research and regulatory developments in other cold‑weather jurisdictions.”
The studs, which retract, on the Hakkapeliitta 01.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
The writer was a guest of the manufacturer. Content was not subject to approval.