Awards
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.
Hankook Tire has been awarded two iF Design Awards for its Ventus S1 evo2 Motion Graphic Brochure and Eco Motion Graphic Brochure animated product films. Both have both been awarded the 2013 iF Design Award in the ‘communication’ category. This marks the third time that Hankook has received the internationally recognised design award; the tyre maker also gained this distinction in 2009 and 2011.
In addition to launching its FLEXX Belt Maker at this week’s Tire Technology Expo – for which it won the show’s ‘Tire Manufacturing Innovation of the Year’ award – VMI introduced its new tyre production equipment control portal. Called Cortexx, the new control portal is said to be a user-friendly system that employs the same look-and-feel for user interfaces across all machines, making it easier for operators and maintenance technicians to work across several pieces of equipment.
At the 13th annual Tire Technology Expo awards, held last night in Cologne, Apollo Tyres was honoured as Tire Manufacturer of the Year. Shortlisted alongside Bridgestone, Continental and Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Apollo was selected for the award in recognition of the brand’s continued expansion in the European market, growth underpinned by the launch of key products such as its first high performance summer tyre for Europe, the Aspire 4G, and the inauguration of a new technical centre in Enschede, The Netherlands, a site that has taken on global responsibility for passenger car tyre research and development. Announcing Apollo’s selection as Tire Manufacturer of the year, Tire Technology International noted the company’s “impressive” financial growth; in 2011-12, Apollo’s revenue exceeded US$2.5 billion for the first time.
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Goodyear is supplying some of the most vaunted vehicles at this week’s North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. The 2013 Ram 1500 and the Tesla Model S have been honoured in two very different categories, though Goodyear supplies the standard tyres on both models.
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