Michelin e.Primacy vs Continental Eco Contact 6: With the major shift towards electric vehicles in place of hydrocarbons powered ones, the main requirements for tires are also changing. Previously we have covered the Michelin e.Primacy as it was specifically designed for the electric vehicle market while boasting to be the first carbon neutral tire out there in the market. We also saw how the e.Primacy stacked up against Primacy 4 and demonstrated the drawback in order to reach amazingly low rolling resistance values.
Rather than comparing with different segments this time around, we would compare the e.Primacy against its own eco segment competitor in the form of Continental’s Eco Contact 6. Both tires were designed to have low rolling resistance while optimizing the other performances. e.Primacy was launched in late 2020 while the Eco Contact 6 was launched in 2018. Let’s have a quick comparison of e.Primacy vs Eco Contact 6 and see how well they fare against each other.
Table of Contents
Results
Results below were taken from the 2022 ViBilagare Summer Tyre Test. A total of 10 tires were tested this year. The graph below shows the comparison between Michelin e.Primacy vs Continental Eco Contact 6 based on the relevant performance category. The Michelin e.Primacy was set as a reference hence at the 100% mark.
Note that for subjective comfort evaluation, we equate 1 point as 5%. Hence for example if tire A is graded 7 while tire B is graded 6, A is better than B by 5%. The natural scaling does not really make sense in evaluation whereby the max number is 5. The tire size of interest is 205/55R16 which is a common tire size for Volkswagen Golf (2018) and the Toyota Corolla Altis (2018). You can check out our latest tire size table for more information.
Rolling Resistance
We will start with the main requirement of electric vehicles which is to have a low rolling resistance tire which will enable a longer range. With an A label rating from both tires, we would expect a close battle. However e.Primacy not only finished below the label limits (<=6.5 N/kN), it did so amazingly better by achieving a 5.64 N/kN rolling resistance coefficient which is 13% less than required for the A label. On the other hand, Eco Contact 6 does come with also an A label but only managed a 6.48 N/kN rolling resistance coefficient which is just at the borderline of the A label limits.
Even though the e.Primacy had an outstanding rolling resistance, this did not translate effectively into fuel savings as the rolling resistance from tires only attributes 20% of the car’s overall resistance. The e.Primacy end up with a fuel consumption of 5.13 liter/100km while the Eco Contact 6 was slightly better with a 5.07 liter/100km fuel consumption value.
Eco Contact 6:
- -13% in rolling resistance
- +1.2% in fuel economy
Wet
Safety has always been the main theme when it comes to the need for wet performances. In objective wet braking, Eco Contact 6 managed to out brake the e.Primacy by 2.1 meters. We know from the wet braking labels there is a 1 level difference (Eco Contact 6-A, e.Primacy-B) and it was not surprising that a 6% difference in braking distance was observed.
The similar trend continues in the wet handling criteria as the Eco Contact 6 was 0.7 seconds faster around the wet track. Things were also bad in aquaplaning as the e.Primacy has a slip speed deficit of 2.5 km/h in straight aquaplaning while having a deficit of 1.4 km/h in lateral aquaplaning. As the e.Primacy has a 6.1mm tread depth compared to the 6.7mm of Eco Contact 6 it is not surprising why it is doing so bad in aquaplaning. Due to the lower amount of void volume, e.Primacy was unable to dissipate water faster compared to tires having a much higher tread depth. Overall, Eco Contact 6 was better against e.Primacy in all wet performances.
Eco Contact 6:
- +6.1% in wet braking
- +1% in wet handling (lap time)
- +1.9% in wet circle
- +3.3% in straight aquaplaning
- +2.2% in curve aquaplaning
Dry
After the total domination in wet, e.Primacy retains some of its pride by performing quite well in dry performances. It was slightly better than Eco Contact 6 by stopping only 0.7m behind in dry braking. While in dry handling, they were also really close as 0.1 seconds separated them apart with Eco Contact 6 being slightly faster. Overall, due to its lower tread depth which provides a much stiffer crown, e.Primacy came out ahead in the dry performances.
Eco Contact 6:
- -1.9% in dry braking
- +0.1% in dry handling (lap time)
Noise & Comfort
Both tires were ranked 3/5 in comfort while Eco Contact 6 was +1 point better in subjective noise with a rating of 4/5 compared to the 3/5 rating of e.Primacy.
Eco Contact 6:
- +5% in subjective noise
- 0% in comfort
Price
Michelin being Michelin with no surprises as it commands one of the highest priced tires in the market. Both Michelin were the top 3 most expensive tires in the test. The e.Primacy was priced €14 more compared to the Eco Contact 6.
Tire size: 205/55 R16
Eco Contact 6: €94
Difference: -15% more cheaper for Eco Contact 6.
Summary
As the eco segment has a big focus on rolling resistance, the drawbacks can be clearly seen as both tires choose different compromises. The e.Primacy shines with the lowest rolling resistance values & better dry braking but comes with a 6.1mm tread depth. Eco Contact 6 on the other hand comes with a tread depth of 6.7mm while being strong in wet & noise. From our point of view, there is no clear winner in this case as there is no clear tire with an overall advantage. If you are an electric car owner, the trade off between having a slightly longer range vs wet performances should be properly evaluated when choosing between these 2 tires.