California Regulators Didn’t Ban Tires.
They Priced 70 Percent of Them Off the Shelf.
On August 17, the California Energy Commission voted 5–0 to adopt the nation’s first Replacement Tire Efficiency Program — a rule setting minimum energy-efficiency standards for the passenger and light-truck tires sold at retail in California. Not the California Air Resources Board. Not the Department of Toxic Substances Control. The five-member commission that regulates the state’s power grid and gasoline supply just took up tires.
The “California bans tires” headlines that followed aren’t literal, and this page’s first job is to say so plainly. Nobody is confiscating the tires already on your car. Original-equipment tires on new vehicles are untouched. And the commission carved out snow and winter tires, competition tires, used and retreaded tires, off-road tires, motorcycle tires, and emergency-vehicle tires. What the rule actually does is set an efficiency bar most of today’s tires don’t clear — and when a reporter put that number to commissioners, they didn’t dispute it: roughly 70 percent of the tire models on California shelves right now won’t meet it, and are expected to phase out of retail by 2033.
The real fight isn’t over the ban framing. It’s over what the tires that remain — and everything that replaces the rest — will cost drivers. On that question, the state’s own numbers and the tire industry’s numbers aren’t in the same neighborhood.
- 70% — share of tire models currently sold in California that won't meet the new thresholds and are expected to phase off retail shelves by 2033 · Source: Washington Examiner; KCRA
- $6–$11 vs. $300+ — the gap between the state's high-end per-tire cost estimate and industry's per-set estimate · Source: CEC; Tire Industry Association; Goodyear testimony
- $1 billion/yr — CEC Chair David Hochschild's claimed statewide driver fuel-savings figure once the rule is fully phased in · Source: California Energy Commission
- 2029 / 2033 — the Phase 1 and Phase 2 rolling-resistance compliance deadlines set by the new rule · Source: CEC RTEP rulemaking docket
- 23 years — time since AB 844 (2003) first ordered this rule — a mandate the commission is finishing about 19 years past its own statutory deadline · Source: AB 844, 2003; CEC
The Replacement Tire Efficiency Program works on rolling resistance — the energy it takes to keep a tire turning, measured in newtons per kilonewton (N/kN). A lower number means the tire drags less, so the vehicle underneath it burns less gasoline, or draws less from an EV battery, per mile. Phase 1, effective 2029, caps rolling resistance at 9.1 N/kN. Phase 2, effective 2033, tightens that to 7.2 N/kN. Tires that don’t meet the threshold in effect at the time can still be manufactured; they simply can’t be sold at retail inside California, per the commission’s own rulemaking docket.
The scope matters as much as the mechanism. RTEP governs replacement tires sold at retail — the ones bought when a current set wears out — not the tires that come on a car from the factory, and not the tires already mounted on the vehicle in a driveway. The exemption list runs long: snow and winter tires, competition tires, used and retreaded tires, off-road tires, motorcycle tires, and emergency-vehicle tires are all outside the rule. What’s left is the ordinary passenger and light-truck replacement tire — the kind most Californians buy at a chain tire shop every three or four years.
The legal authority for RTEP isn’t new. Then-Assemblymember Joe Nation (D-San Rafael) authored AB 844, and then-Gov. Gray Davis (D) signed it in 2003, directing the Energy Commission to adopt efficiency standards for replacement tires by July 1, 2007. The commission missed that deadline by nearly two decades. The rule finalized this month closes a gap that’s been open longer than some California drivers have held a license — 23 years since Davis signed the bill, roughly 19 years past the date the statute told regulators to act.
CEC Commissioner Nancy Skinner — a Newsom appointee who, before joining the commission, spent eight years as an elected Democrat representing Berkeley in the state Senate (D-Berkeley) — didn’t dodge the delay when the vote closed. “These regulations are a tool within our authority that can save money for every Californian,” she said, adding a line that doubled as an admission: “If I had been on the commission 20 years ago, maybe it wouldn’t have taken so long.” KCRA’s Ashley Zavala flagged the same history on X, noting the state had effectively dusted off a bill more than two decades old to get here.
California just dusted off a 20-plus-year-old bill — AB 844, signed in 2003 — to finally adopt these tire efficiency rules.
David Hochschild, the CEC’s chair and a Newsom appointee, framed the rule as a pocketbook win. “This ultimately is about protecting consumers,” he said. “I see this as sheltering the public from higher costs in the long run.” The commission’s own estimates back that framing with a range, not a single number: Phase 1 adds $1.50 to $6–$11 to the price of a compliant tire, depending on which of the commission’s own cost methodologies is used; Phase 2 adds roughly $6.50 more. Against that, the state claims fuel savings of $79 to $85 per tire in Phase 1 and $153 to $179 per tire in Phase 2, spread over a tire’s roughly four-year life — netting out, in the commission’s telling, to real money back in drivers’ pockets. Statewide, Hochschild put the aggregate at “approximately $1 billion a year” in refueling savings once the rule is fully in effect.
“This action will help Californians save approximately $1 billion a year on refueling...”
David Hochschild, Chair, California Energy Commission, on the Aug. 17 RTEP vote
The tire industry’s math doesn’t start from the same place. In testimony to the commission, Goodyear’s Bret Gladfelty put the real-world cost at “several hundred dollars” for a set of four — not single digits — and raised a safety objection alongside the price tag: reduced rolling resistance, he warned, “can directly affect traction and braking characteristics, particularly under varied driving conditions, raising legitimate safety concerns.” The Tire Industry Association’s estimate lands in between: the average tire price could climb from $81 today to as much as $157, pushing a set of four past $300. One independent industry consultant’s estimate ran even higher — to $365.20 for a set.
The State’s Math (California Energy Commission)
Phase 1 (2029) — added cost per tire$1.50–$11
Phase 1 — claimed fuel savings per tire$79–$85
Phase 2 (2033) — added cost per tire~$6.50
Phase 2 — claimed fuel savings per tire$153–$179
Statewide claimed savings~$1 billion / yr
Industry’s Math (Goodyear, Tire Industry Association)
Goodyear testimony — added cost, set of four“several hundred dollars”
TIA — average tire price, today vs. projected$81 → $157
TIA — projected cost, set of fourover $300
Independent consultant estimate — set of four$365.20
Sources: CEC RTEP proceeding; Just the News; Legal Insurrection; Washington Examiner
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) picked up the same $1 billion figure Hochschild cited and folded it into his own affordability pitch. “The return on investment is pretty good,” Newsom said. “Save a billion dollars a year in fuel. You talk about an affordability agenda, that makes sense to me.”
The messaging effort reached past press conferences and into a reporter’s inbox. After Zavala reported the 70 percent shelf-clearance estimate — a figure the commission itself did not dispute — CEC public information officer Niki Woodard emailed her asking her to “consider taking a different tone” on the story, according to RedState’s Bob Hoge. Nobody disputed Zavala’s facts. A state agency’s own communications staff simply asked a reporter to frame them differently — a small data point about how California’s government handles coverage it doesn’t like, worth noting on a story about accountability.
Gov. Newsom on the tire rule: 'The return on investment is pretty good... you talk about an affordability agenda, that makes sense to me.'
Online reaction ran less charitably than the administration’s talking points. Spencer Pratt, the reality-television personality turned online commentator, reacted to Commissioner Skinner’s post-vote remarks with a post that skipped past the efficiency framing entirely.
This very odd bird who is now regulating what tires you can get in CA just gave away the whole scam... Of course, no mention of reducing CA's self-imposed gas taxes.
Whatever side of the cost math a driver believes, the calendar is set. Phase 1 takes effect in 2029; Phase 2 in 2033. Between now and then, tire shelves narrow, price tags move by a few dollars or a few hundred depending on whose estimate holds up, and a 23-year-old law finally gets tested against real receipts.
California’s Energy Commission voted 5–0 on August 17 to finish a job the Legislature assigned it in 2003 and told it to complete by 2007. The rule isn’t a ban — original-equipment tires, tires already on the road, and a long list of specialty tires are untouched — but it will thin the retail shelf by roughly 70 percent over the next seven years. The state says the fuel savings more than cover the higher price tag; the tire industry says the real cost runs into the hundreds of dollars per set, not single digits. Both numbers are on the record. Only one of them will show up on a driver’s receipt.
