Bridgestone highlights four original equipment trends to watch in 2024 and beyond

New solutions are required for a constantly evolving industry with the growth of EVs; sustainability demands such as renewable and recycled materials to play crucial role

Bridgestone has revealed four tyre trends to look out for as the automotive industry evolves with the rise of electric vehicles. The tyre manufacturer is a major tyre supplier for many of the world’s leading vehicle manufacturers, holding a significant share of the OE market. It is designing and supplying more fitments for EVs than ever before. In the European OE market, Bridgestone’s team has shared four major trends it believes will have the biggest impact on an evolving automotive industry throughout 2024 and beyond.

Continuing to adjust to the ‘new normal’

From the pandemic in 2020 to 2021’s semiconductor shortage, and the energy price increase and inflation spike of 2022, OE demand in Europe has faced successive headwinds that have heavily impacted new car sales and production. And despite a double-digit recovery in 2023, OE demand remains 20 per cent below pre-Covid levels. Bridgestone says that this should now be seen as a structural change in the market and not just a cyclical adjustment. Though there are several factors contributing to this, the increase in the price of new cars is clearly a major contributor.

The tyre manufacturer adds that there “are clear winners and losers in this evolving market among OEMS.” And we can expect further changes in the coming years as they continue adjusting to a very changed industry and world.

OEMs will continue to go all-in on EV

In the first 10 months of 2023, battery-powered electric vehicles (EV) represented 14 per cent of car registrations in Europe – higher than diesel. EV, combined with plug-in and mild hybrids, were just over 51 per cent of the market.

With the electric revolution in full swing, the main driver for EV adoption is the regulatory requirement for zero emissions vehicles by 2035 in the EU and the UK. Bridgestone says that while the deadline is more than a decade away, it is only two product cycles away. OEMs are already working on the technologies and platforms to use from 2030.

The historical barriers to EV adoption –range anxiety and charging infrastructure being the big two – are being addressed, the cost of new EVs is now seen as a core issue. As a result, several OEMs have announced much cheaper entry-level EVs, retailing at less than £22,000.

For the tyre industry, these continuing trends mean further product development to take into account the performance balance of EVs, which is slightly different to Internal Combustion Engines (ICE). Bridgestone adds that “we see that OEMs are still adjusting their requirements to find the right balance between key factors like rolling resistance, wear, noise and wet handling. For Bridgestone, our strengths in virtual tyre development in particular are empowering us to quickly and efficiently develop new proposals based on evolving OEM requirements.”

Bridgestone’s Potenza Sport UHP tyre offers glimpses of the strategic shifts it is making to cater to an evolving OE market (Photo: Bridgestone)

OEM sustainability demands will further intensify

As little as three years ago, big corporations talked about high-level aspirations in CO2 emissions, but with little impact on operations. Today, sustainability has become what Bridgestone terms “a fourth pillar of the OE business, alongside our commercial, engineering and quality offers.” The tyre maker says OEMs now require a much higher level of more complex detail against the carbon footprint of products and the materials used in tyres, for example.

Bridgestone adds: “One of the biggest challenges in the coming years will be how we continue to increase the volume of renewable and recycled materials in tyres. Our OEM partners are now very interested in knowing where we will obtain these materials from, how we guarantee their quality, and how we manage the external certification they’re now demanding at scale.”

Newcomers to struggle

While expectation was rife pre-pandemic that a new wave of entrants from outside the traditional automotive players would sweep into the car market, Bridgestone argues that this is now less likely. Half a decade ago, there was an assumption that EVs were much easier to develop and produce than traditional ICE-powered cars. At the end of 2023, it is clear that this is not the case.

Bridgestone says many newcomers “have struggled with the complexity of building cars at scale and in finding the huge amounts of capital needed for vehicle development – especially as interest rates have gone up sharply. It’s become clearer in recent times that the ‘revolution’ that was expected will be much more of an ‘evolution’. But that doesn’t mean entering the market is impossible.

“It’s safe to say that we are seeing an abnormal rate of change in the automotive industry. But we are convinced that Bridgestone has the product and technology to continue supporting our OEM partners as they move forward.”