Tire: Energy Saver A/S
Category: Passenger All-Season
UTQG (treadwear): 480 A A / 480 A B
The Energy Saver A/S is billed by Michelin as the most fuel efficient tire that they produce in the segment, and you can usually find this tire on hybrids (Toyota Prius, Honda Insight, etc.) and other very fuel efficient vehicles. What they've tried to do here is make a four-season tire that has those low rolling resistance properties to give great fuel economy. Michelin's Green X technology is how they go about this using a special silica-based tread compound and a unique Comfort Control computer-optimized design. Lots of great tech has gone into this tire. It's a relatively new design as well, being introduced in Europe in 2007 and North America in 2009.
Overall, I give this tire top billing in the performance segment. It's up there in the top 5 for sure. Now Passenger All-Season tires are not meant to be on the track or anything, and make no mistake...they will not provide great traction for high horsepower vehicles. But they are solid performers. It's likely you'll see around 70,000 fuel-efficient miles out of a set of these tires under most conditions. The one knock against them would probably be the price. I mean, these tires are not cheap unless you can find them on sale. So is the fuel efficiency worth the additional price? That's hard to say, and it really depends on a lot of other factors. But I'd say considering how well these perform, it's worth doing the math.
