The N2Revolution: is it actually just a lot of hot air?

Using nitrogen in your tyres will increase the life of your tyres, and it will help to ensure your tyres maintain their correct pressures due to less seepage, at least in the initial stages. We foresee a problem in maintaining the correct pressures in the longer term simply due to the scarcity of Nitroflators.

So be aware that it will involve a LOT more time and effort to do something that is almost certainly habit if you already care about maintaining proper tyre pressures i.e. checking the pressures every time you fill with gas and maintaining them correctly.

N2Revolution tells us that Purigen98 dealers are providing the nitrogen inflation service for a variety of prices. Some dealers give it away for free, and others charge US$29.99 per passenger car and add an additional US$10.00 for larger trucks and SUVs.

Now US$7.50 per tyre is very steep – it’s unlikely that it will return enough increased tyre life to repay that sort of investment. And if the seepage of pressure was ever really an issue for someone who maintains their tyres correctly, it will add the unholy complication of knowing your tyres aren’t at optiumum pressure and not being able to do anything about it.

N2Revolution is investing heavily in promoting nitrogen use to the market, and is engaging in talks with other nitrogen providers toward educating the market and promoting the use of nitrogen. If it succeeds, and Nitroflators become commonplace at service stations, one of the major hurdles to using nitrogen in tyres will have been overcome and we suspect that auto enthusiasts everywhere would swap at that point.

Indeed, the general problem of the populations ignorance to correctly maintained tyres is likely to see Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) become commonplace in vehicles over the next decade as relying on human knowledge and nature isn’t working.

Specialist tyre retailers and gas stations are being sold the system as an added income stream – a new way of either creating a point of difference in their service (giving it away) or up-selling their customers (charging).

It is a better system but we suspect that the ROI on paying US$7.50 a tyre would be a big fat negative – that is, it’s an investment that won’t return a dividend.

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