Minicar-Segment Entered By Nissan
As announced in a press conference in Tokyo, car manufacturer Suzuki will supply 3,000 so called minicars a month to Nissan from 2002 onwards. With this agreement Nissan will enter the small car segment – with a maximum capacity of 660 cc – which already has a market share of 30 percent in Japan.
Continue ReadingNo Comment From Pirelli Group On Lucent
Pirellis cable and fibre optics firm has declined to comment on its position regarding a bid for Lucents fibre optic operation after the collapse of discussions on the proposed $23billion merger between Lucent and Alcatel.
Continue ReadingCooper Tire Announces Intent to Buy Hercules Retreading Assets
Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. announced the intention, as of June 30, 2001, to purchase certain manufacturing assets used in Hercules retread operation and will soon begin to supply retread products to customers formerly served by Hercules. This purchase will significantly increase sales in the Oliver Retreading Systems and Products unit, which is a part of Coopers new commercial division. Also included in this sale are certain assets of the Cedco equipment division, which will benefit Oliver’s Salisbury equipment operation. The final price is subject to certain valuations at closing but will not exceed $8.5 million.
Continue ReadingTauzin Data Forwarded To Ford
Republican Senator Tauzins data on 11 replacement tyre models has been forwarded to Ford. Tauzin, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has asked Ford for a comprehensive explanation of how it decided which brands of tyres to use as replacements. He has also asked Ford to run rig tests on all replacement tyre brands before installing them. This follows Committee investigators claims that 11 of the replacement tyre models had higher damage and injury rates than the Firestone Wilderness ATs being replaced.
Continue ReadingApproval For Continental By Jaguar
Continental Tyres has gained approval for fitment of its ContiSportContact and CH95 tyres for the new Jaguar X-Type. The sizes are 225/45 R17 V (ContiSportContact) and 205/55 R16 (CH95).
Continue ReadingTruck Tyre Agreement Between Conti And Kings Road Tyres
Following the recent shake-up of its UK truck tyre operations, Continental has announced a strategic agreement with wholesaler Kings Road Tyres, whereby KRT will become the sole distributor of Uniroyal truck tyres in the UK and Ireland, effective September 1st. The new business will be separate from KRTs wholesale operation and will be called Uniroyal Truck Tyres. Uniroyal car and van tyres are unaffected by the agreement and will still be managed by Continental.
Continue ReadingRestructuring For Smartire Strategic Alliance
Smart tyre technology market leader Smartire has announced a restructuring of its strategic alliance with TRW. Elements of agreements entered into during the research and development process in 1998 will be cancelled. Smartire is to pay TRW $3.3 million (3.7 million Euro) in cash and debt in regard to the transaction. TRW will continue to hold a considerable equity in Smartire, but the restructuring of the alliance will allow both companies to fully pursue a wide range of global market opportunities.
Continue ReadingContinuing Satisfaction From Michelin In J. D. Power Study
In the US, The J.D. Power & Associates 2001 Replacement Tire and Retailer Customer Satisfaction Study has rated Michelin as the brand offering most customer satisfaction among both passenger vehicles and light truck owners. This is the tenth year of the study and Michelin has taken top spot for the last seven years (light trucks) and the past three years for passenger vehicles. Light trucks include pick-ups, SUVs and full-size vans, passenger vehicles, cars and compact vans. Customers mentioned reliability, durability , performance and handling above price.
Continue ReadingContinental Candidate For Takeover?
HelabaTrust (the investment and research subsidiary of Landesbank Thueringen-Hessen) believes that Continental could be a candidate for a takeover. Reasons given are the enormous debts of 3.6 bn Euro and the weak level of the shares.
Continue ReadingLighter Steel And Alloy Wheels
Hayes Lemmerz is the worlds leading global manufacturer of automotive and commercial highway wheels and one of only a few companies producing wheels from both steel and aluminium. Regarding steel wheels, the company, whose headquarters are in the USA, is the worldwide market leader. Regarding aluminium wheels, Hayes Lemmerz is among the leading manufacturers in Europe. Recent years have seen a move from steel to aluminium wheels in original equipment. Looking purely at price, the steel wheel is absolutely unrivalled, but obviously the two criteria of weight and styling have proved more important to the car manufacturers. Realising that it was not enough that the steel wheel is cheaper, the manufacturers decided to become competitive also in the matter of weight. With its newest development of a steel structure wheel, Hayes Lemmerz has attained this target; this kind of wheel is now fitted in a 16 inch size on the newest Ford Mondeo model. But it must be said that is was not only an achievement of the wheel company but also for the producers of new kinds of steel which gives the wheel more rigidity and stability than before and offers the opportunity to make the wheels thinner and therefore lighter. Regarding styling, Hayes Lemmerz tries to mimic the smart aluminium wheels with new finishes that look like aluminium or chrome or are even coloured. Another opportunity is to create a very well-fitting wheel cap. Being also one of the most sophisticated aluminium wheel manufacturers, Hayes Lemmerz tried to develop lighter alloy wheels too. One competitor (Stahlschmidt & Maiworm) has already made much progress with hollow spokes and this kind of wheel is fitted on the top models of Porsche, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz. The idea of Hayes Lemmerz engineers was not to use the spokes but the rim bead section for cavities: they call the invention Hollow-Hump Technology.
Continue ReadingNew Distribution Warehouse For Michelin
Michelin is to invest 12m Euro in a new tyre warehouse at its Alava plant in Spain. The 30,000 square metre warehouse will employ 40 staff and will be for the exclusive distribution of the production from the Alava factory. The warehouse should be operational in 2002.
Continue ReadingTARRC Seminar
The Tun Abdul Razak Research Centre (TARRC) has been deeply involved for the past two years in an EU-funded CRAFT project, the aim of which is to achieve better assessment of new tyre casing integrity in order to increase the number of tyres retreaded in Europe. TARRC hosted a seminar to discuss the impact of existing and proposed regulations on retreaders and some findings from the CRAFT project. The reason for the CRAFT project was based on a concern by retreaders that the quality of some new tyre casings was decreasing, with the danger that the industry could be deprived of its basic raw material. Principal research objectives included the development of new tests in order to predict the retreadability of new tyres, the establishment of a best practice drum test and a league table of tyre brands, rated according to their retreadability. The project will be finished this year. In investigating retreadability, TARRC tested a number of tyres in accordance with Regulation 54, the standard against which new tyres are tested. Under this standard, tyres are drum tested for 47 hours. The results were extremely surprising and indicate that either Regulation 54 is deeply flawed, or that the tyre industry has a problem. Testing 295/80 R22.5 M-rated tyres, the results showed a failure rate among new tyres of 20.8%. The new tyre manufacturers usually carry out their own tests and their failure rates are nothing like this figure, which begs the question why is there such a disparity between manufacturers’ results and the findings from TARRC? Under the new retreading Regulation 109, tyres are chosen and tested at random by an outside agency. Is there any independent validation of the in-house testing of new tyres? A proposal was made that new tyre manufacturers and retreaders cooperate in a programme of cross-testing new tyres in order to try and solve this apparent anomaly. Whether or not this will happen remains to be seen.
Continue ReadingUS Customer Survey Rates Goodyear
A customer survey conducted by US mail order tyre and wheel retailer Tire Rack has placed Goodyear tyres top in two categories. The Aquatred 3 came first in the all-season category and the Regatta was top of the standard touring section. Goodyear said the results were slightly surprising, as the company does not supply Tire Rack directly with tyres.
Continue ReadingTyreCheck Joins Forces With BRAKE Road Safety Week
The National Tyre Distributors Association has announced that, following the success of last years inaugural TyreCheck Safety campaign, the association has joined forces with road safety lobby group BRAKE for this years event. TyreCheck 2001 will run alongside the BRAKE Road Safety Week (31st March to 6th April) and is open to all UK tyre retailers. The 2000 TyreCheck found that 10 per cent of tyres examined were below the 1.6mm legal minimum tread depth.
Continue ReadingE-Business Partner For Michelin USA
Michelin North America has selected Modern Media, a e-retail software specialist to develop its B2C initiative in North America. Michelin North America Incs Debra Track said, Modern Media will help us create a platform that will allow us to go after a new generation of consumers that dont necessarily use traditional media in their shopping habits. The value of the deal has not been disclosed.
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