Awards
The 2013 Cutting Carbon, Cutting Costs Conference, an interactive event designed to provide specialised carbon reduction advice for freight operators, is scheduled to be held on Wednesday 22 May at the Heritage Motor Museum, Gaydon, Warwickshire. At the Logistics Carbon Reduction Scheme (LCRS) conference there will be a range of workshops to suit freight operators' own individual fleet and business.
The 29-person international jury presiding over this year’s Vehicle Dynamics Innovation Awards have named Continental’s new weather-independent AIBA tyre testing facility winner of the awards’ “Development Tool of the Year” category.
Continental AG has been named as the 2013 Automotive News PACE (Premier Automotive Suppliers’ Contribution to Excellence) Award for its tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) with patented LocSync software.
The tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) from Continental is designed to provide the driver with the current inflation pressures individual tyres. If a particular tyre’s pressure is too low, the instrument alerts the driver. According to the company, the new tyres and sensors are detected automatically without the need for any additional electronic equipment by using the LocSync software to combine the data from the wheel speed sensors and tyre sensors.
The first commercially-available Tweel product has landed Michelin North America a Silver Edison Award. The tyre maker was presented with the transport category award at the Edison Awards ceremony, which was held on 25 April.
The Tweel concept has been around for the best part of a decade, and earlier this year commercial sales of Tweel products began. The first on the market, the Michelin X-Tweel SSL, is a finalist in the 2013 Edison Awards. The X-Tweel SSL appears in the Transportation category, one of 12 Edison Awards categories. Winners will be announced on 25 April.
On 18 April, the Boeing Company honoured Goodyear Tire & Rubber as one of its 17 most exceptional suppliers. Goodyear was selected from a pool of more than 23,000 Boeing suppliers from around the world and received a Boeing Supplier of the Year award at a ceremony held in San Diego, US. The tyre maker was awarded in the Electronics/Hydraulics/Mechanical category.
Nankang’s Eco-2 tyre was awarded a 2013 AMPA Innovation Award at the Taipei International Auto Parts & Accessories Show for “achieving increased fuel savings with excellent grip.”
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Three times BTCC winner, Matt Neal, is to judge Dunlop’s annual car livery competition. The Europe wide competition aims to find a winning livery for the Dunlop Ferrari that will race in the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours in June.
Motorsport and car fans, design students and artists (aged 16 years and over*) from across Europe are invited to take part. Each country will have a competition with four entries put forward to the European final. Dunlop is proud to announce that Matt Neal will choose the best four UK designs as part of this pan European competition.
Metzeler’s domination of the tyre category in German motorcycling magazine Motorrad’s Best Brand awards continues this year. The tyre maker has taken the category award on four of the eight occasions it has been contested; this year Metzeler gained the support of 64.8 per cent of the 30,245 Motorrad readers who participated in voting for the awards.
Goodyear is currently celebrating picking up two Which? Magazine Best Buy awards. The latest issue of Which? Includes tests on 225/45 R17 and 185/60 R15 products, with Goodyear’s Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2 tested in the former category and its EfficientGrip Performance in the latter.
Subaru of Indiana Automotive, the US-based plant that produces some 250,000 Subaru and Toyota vehicles each year, has named three tyre makers as recipients of its annual Quality & Delivery awards. At an awards ceremony on 13 March, the company presented awards to 33 parts suppliers, including Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations and Continental Tire the Americas.
Motor Codes, the OFT-approved garage scheme operator, has announced the shortlist of businesses in the running for its Garage of the Year title. Thousands have voted in the annual initiative that helps uncertain motorists know where to turn for top-class customer service. Over 7,000 garages from across the UK, all subscribers to Motor Codes' government-backed code of practice, put themselves up for public scrutiny.
The use of recycled tyre rubber in the production of new tyres hasn’t really taken off yet, and a main reason for this is because the rubber powder produced by traditional recycling methods doesn’t always reach the level of purity required by new tyre makers – indeed, the European Tyre & Rubber Manufacturers’ Association opines that “while in the EU around 39 per cent of material from end of life tyres is recovered [this includes rubber, but also steel and fabric], recycled materials cannot be used as a substitute for natural rubber in new tyres because of technical limitations.” But now a firm in Hungary claims to have perfected a process that removes every last trace of steel from the rubber powder, thereby overcoming this limitation. Speaking with Tyres & Accessories during February’s Tire Technology Expo in Germany, Gábor Kostyál, CEO of HungaroJet Ltd., described the technology involved and how it can benefit the tyre and rubber industry.
At the end of February, commercial production of Ekoprena began in Malaysia. Currently one company, Felda Rubber Industries, is the sole manufacturer of this epoxidised natural rubber, and senior marketing manager Sarimah Nasir told Tyres & Accessories that Felda is preparing to produce between 200 and 300 tonnes of Ekoprena and Pureprena deproteinised natural rubber per month this year.
Korean manufacturer Nexen Tyre has announced its plans to increase production at its Chinese plant in Qingdao from eight to ten million units, this year. Speaking in front of around 100 Chinese dealers at the 2013 Nexen Tyre Annual Awards in Yunnan, China, Nexen said it also plans to expand its sales activities with more intensive regional marketing and innovate market-specific products from its Qingdao research and development centre.
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