Yokohama gearing up for European tyre factory

In October, Yokohama announced that the company had appointed ex-Pirelli and ex-Prometeon executive Gregorio Borgo as its European president – the first time a non-Japanese executive has led Yokohama Europe. Roughly nine months later, there are a number of indications that the European business is entering a new chapter, which includes plans to invest in the construction of a factory “in the heart of Europe”.

Speaking at the official launch of the Advan Sport V107 at the Nürburgring in Germany, Yokohama Europe’s first major event since the global Covid-19 pandemic, Gregorio Borgo and executive vice president Aleksander Gramatikov cast a vision that sees Yokohama move away from what might be described as a pure volume strategy towards a value strategy that capitalises on preceding OE wins and brand investments (such as the well-known sponsorship of Chelsea FC) and add further moves towards premium sales and size segments.

The likelihood that, after the integration of recently acquired Trelleborg Wheel Systems is complete, Yokohama will be the sixth-largest tyremakerin the world is a significant milestone in the global development of Yokohama. And along with that newly-enhanced overall scale comes the desire to broaden out Yokohama’s largely German-focused OE sales to other European-based car manufacturing operations. However, increasing premium replacement tyre sales and expanding Yokohama’s car tyre OE business ultimately both require a European factory.

Post Trelleborg integration, Yokohama will be a more than 6-billion-euro company (5.478 billion euros if you just count tyre-derived business). “What is missing in Europe is a factory”, Borgo commented, explaining that adding “a factory in Europe soon” has to be Yokohama’s Europe’s strategy moving forward.

When it comes to location, Borgo indicated that future plant should be “at the heart of Europe”. At the time, he stood in front of a map of the continent, specifically highlighting Poland and the Czech Republic both verbally and with his laser pointer as frontrunner sites.

No specific timeframe has been given, but Yokohama Europe chairman Hiroyuki Shioiri and Borgo explained that the onus is on the Yokohama Europe team and its customers to give global senior executives the confidence to make such an investment. In short, it is probably best to say that Yokohama is gearing up for a factory project in 2024 if the business can achieve the right results in 2022/2023.

While suggestions of a Yokohama European tyre production plant have been made before they haven’t been uttered so directly or by such a senior executive up till now. Neither have so many details been released before.

For full coverage of Yokohama Europe’s renewed strategy as well as details of the Advan Sport V107 event, see the August edition of Tyres & Accessories.

“The heart of Europe” most likely means Czech Republic or Poland (Photo: Hans Braxmeier; Pixabay)