Will new battery production capacity replace car production in the UK?
While the UK new car manufacturing business has taken something of a battering in recent months, The Sunday Times reports that government ministers are considering offering state support for a huge shared electric vehicle battery “giga factory” modelled on Tesla’s enormous US battery manufacturing plant in the Nevada desert. That plant, which is known as Gigafactory 1, is set to have the biggest factory footprint in the world and already employees 3000 people. The UK project has so far been valued at around £1.7 billion.
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March 2019 – Retreading Special
Click on the CONTINUE READING button to view the March 2019 issue of Retreading Special
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March 2019
Click on the CONTINUE READING button to view the March 2019 issue of Tyres & Accessories
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Giti Tire SUV products outpacing market growth
Year-on-year growth in the SUV tyre segment has become something of a given in recent years. The popularity of this market segment has been a beacon for car-makers in Europe, as the number of new models in the last decade shows. In terms of tyres, this has meant increases in larger, higher value products, both in the original equipment and replacement markets, the results of which are analysed elsewhere in this section. Volume and value growth in the UK replacement market, at 10 and 15 per cent respectively, has been healthy again in the last year.
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Nexion acquires Stenhøj Group
Automotive servicing equipment supplier Nexion has acquired a majority shareholding in Denmark’s Stenhøj Group. Nexion acquired 75 per cent of Stenhøj Group, with a 25 per cent share in the company remaining in the hands of the previous owner, the Dyoe family. The deal, completed on 8 March, sees Nexion, already a global leader in the automotive equipment sector with the Corghi, Bright, HPA-Faip, Mondolfo Ferro, SICE, Orlandini, Tecnomotor, and Teco brands, extend its portfolio to the Danish Group’s products and services in the automotive aftermarket range, which include Dunlop, Autop, Sherpa, Molnar, Bradbury, Tecalemit, Gemco, and its eponymous Stenhøj brand. This list illustrates the current period of consolidation in the garage equipment sector; the acquisition comes two years after the formation of the Corwei joint venture with Bright, an important Chinese competitor.
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Brexit OE tyre red-alert
Is Brexit going to wreak havoc on the automotive business or is it all just another millennium bug flash-in-the-pan? If a no-deal withdrawal does spell havoc, is it going to impact the tyre business as much as the OEMs?
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Finding success in an increasingly complex sector
Michelin has long been a leading player in the truck and bus tyre markets, with customers ranging from some of the largest fleets out there to owner operators. And yet, recent years have been tough for everyone in the commercial vehicle segment as the forces of economic uncertainty combined with a tidal wave of low-cost Chinese tyres have put pressure on businesses. As we approach Brexit, roughly a year after anti-Chinese truck tyre imports were implemented, Tyres & Accessories spoke to Michelin business-to-business sales director, Chris Smith as well as Andrew French (Michelin director services) and solutions in order to find out more.
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Marangoni: Changing the world of retreading is our responsibility
The Vipal agreement, the Dmack project, the political storms, the ever-changing retreading market. Vittorio and Giuseppe Marangoni, president and vice president of the Italian Marangoni Group, talk about these industry-related topics and more in an interview with Tyres & Accessories.
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SUV tyres continue to drive 4×4 tyre sales growth
Sales of SUV tyres continue to drive growth in the UK 4x4 tyre replacement market, with UHP-orientated tyres growing even faster. According to the latest data provided by market analysts GfK, these trends have come while there have been no clear changes in the market’s brand segmentation, which suggests product mix and volume growth must be behind the improvement.
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February 2019
Click on the CONTINUE READING button to view the February 2019 issue of Tyres & Accessories
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Bridgestone launches Blizzak LM005 winter tyre with A-grade wet grip
Bridgestone has launched its newest winter tyre, the Blizzak LM005. Continuing from the LM001 which heralded a new generation of the manufacturer’s cold weather rubber, the Blizzak LM005 features a new tread pattern and the tyre-maker’s new Nano Pro-tech compound. These developments have helped Bridgestone produce a tyre to compare favourably with existing market competitors in snow and ice braking and wet grip, according to tests conducted by independent testing institute TÜV SÜD.
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Marangoni acquires Leader Rubber majority shareholding
The Marangoni Group has acquired a majority shareholding, 51 per cent, in the South African tread maker Leader Rubber Company SA (Pty) Ltd. The move is the latest development in the decade-long partnership between Leader Rubber and Marangoni. The Italian company acquired a 25 per cent share in the company in 2015, a move it described as the “culmination of a partnership that has been ongoing for several years.”
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Data increasingly important to future prospects in tyre and mobility sectors
It is not unusual for the start of the year to be replete with corporate acquisitions. Some even happen while much of the western world is enjoying Christmas and new year holidays. While European FinTyre Distribution (EfTD) did indeed enact the latest move in its ongoing strategic purchasing programme during the 2018 holiday break, it seems that this year February was the month of choice for getting the chequebooks out, with Bridgestone, Michelin and – in the UK at least – Goodyear all announcing strategic spending. For different but connected reasons all three challenge us to consider the impact of changing mobility trends.
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Bridgestone adapting to increase its mobility services in both its tyre and ancillary products
Bridgestone’s car tyre business is currently pushing boundaries to offer services beyond replacement tyres to motorists. The most obvious way the manufacturer is approaching this is in the application of its DriveGuard run-flat technology beyond the original line of DriveGuard car tyres. The tyre manufacturer has added DriveGuard RFT to its Turanza, Blizzak and Weather Control lines, extending the availability of the technology to an even greater breadth of the market.
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