Based in Japan, Bridgestone Corporation is the world’s largest tyre and rubber company.
All electricity consumed in Bridgestone’s European locations now comes from renewable sources. The tyre maker reports that all its European tyre plants, the European R&D Centre and Proving Ground in Rome, Italy, its pre-cured retreading materials plant in Lanklaar, Belgium, textile plant in Usansolo, Spain, and Bridgestone EMIA headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, are now powered by electricity from 100 per cent renewable sources.
Bridgestone reports that it is gaining extra traction in the SUV market, thanks to its range of top performing products, which have “never been more integral to its premium portfolio”. The company’s Dueler range continues to offer broad coverage in the SUV tyre segment and has more recently been supplemented with what the Turanza T005, Weather Control A005 and now the ultra-performance Potenza Sport offer.
The 2022 Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle, which goes on sale in the UK this month, arrives wearing Bridgestone Battlax Hypersport S22 tyres as original equipment. The latest Hayabusa is fitted with the S22 in size 120/70 ZR17 at the front and 190/50 ZR17 at the rear.
Bridgestone is tickled pink that its new flagship performance tyre, Potenza Sport, has been named winner of Auto Bild sportscars’ 2021 summer tyre test. Scoring ahead of eight other brands of tyre, the Bridgestone Potenza Sport, tested on a Ford Mustang 5.0 in the size 265/35 ZR 20, gained the overall best score in the wet and top ratings on dry roads and was classed as ‘exemplary’ by the German magazine.
A set of UHP tyres can cost more than £1,000 or less than half that, but you get what you pay for. This is what Auto Bild Sportscars found in its 2021 summer tyre test – the pricier tyres finished towards the top of the results table, while the two cheapest tyre brands were also the worst performers.
Bridgestone Americas is providing a one-time, US$100 payment to all of its more than 33,000 employees in the USA who choose to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. The company is also exploring options to deploy a comparable programme to employees in Canada and Latin America as the vaccine becomes more widely available. Bridgestone is among the first major employers in its industry to initiate a financial payment to employees who decide to be vaccinated.
Following last month’s preview of the 2021 report, Brand Finance has released its full Tyres 10 ranking. According to the 2021 table, the tyre sector has taken a hit over the last year, with all 10 brands losing brand value. Brand Finance unsurprisingly puts this decline down to the pandemic-related behavioural changes: “Owing to the lack of travel due to lockdowns, car sales are declining, which means tyre brands are selling less units, resulting in a drop in market equity across the industry. Furthermore, since the economy has been riskier in general over the past year, investor risk has increased, triggering a rise in the cost of capital.”
Bridgestone Corporation has become a member of The Valuable 500, a global movement committed to making disability inclusion a greater part of the business leadership agenda. Through this partnership, Bridgestone says it and other top companies around the world are “committing to help build and promote a society that realises the value of the 1.3 billion people living with disabilities.”
CDP, a global non-profit that runs the world’s leading environmental disclosure platform, has named Bridgestone Corporation to its Supplier Engagement Leaderboard for a second year in a row. It is also the fourth time in total that it has included Bridgestone on the Leaderboard with the highest rating of ‘A’ in Supplier Engagement Rating.
Bridgestone Corporation has released a new commemorative logo and webpage to mark the 90th anniversary of its founding. The company notes that as well as highlighting the anniversary milestone, the logo looks to the future that lies beyond. “It also expresses a commitment to pursuing innovation and swift progress while treasuring its connections with stakeholders.”
Summer tyre tests in 2021 have highlighted the sometimes dazzling qualities of the best performing tyre products. However, the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobilclub’s (ADAC) most recent test appears to have been particularly demanding. No tyre received ADAC’s top “very good” rating, and only five models were rated “good” over the two sizes tested – 205/55 R16 V and 225/50 R17 Y. There were some intriguing results at the top of the table. Falken confirmed its increasingly impressive performance of recent years by winning the 17” tyre test with its Azenis FK510 flagship UHP tyre. The Kumho Ecsta PS71 also achieved a “good” rating in the 17” test, while Continental group brand Semperit’s Speed-Life 3 achieved an overall result matching the Conti PremiumContact 6 in the 16” test. There was worse news for the 17” Firestone Roadhawk, which became the only tyre to receive an “inadequate” report.
Two-wheel vehicles came into their own in a year when travelling on public transport was often discouraged and delivery services boomed. As the Motorcycle Industry Association recently reported, unit sales of scooters shot up 10.6 per cent in 2020 and overall sales of two-wheel vehicles declined just 2.6 per cent year-on-year despite two lockdowns. Demand for aftermarket parts was also healthy within the sector, reflecting both a preference for affordable personal transport as well as the popularity of socially-distanced pastimes such as bike restoration projects. But there’s been a fly in the ointment.
Improving a tyre’s wear efficiency by up to 30 per cent while decreasing rolling resistance by up to six per cent without affecting any other performance area sounds like a tall order. But Bridgestone says that it has achieved this together with partners Arlanxeo and Solvay. The three firms presented Techsyn, the fruit of two years of collaboration, during an online presentation this afternoon.
Bridgestone has looked to the past, present and the future in developing its most comprehensive consumer tyre range to date, which is more simplified, sustainable and sportier than ever before. The tyre giant has achieved notable positive test results for its latest product range, which, in its words, has been simplified and revitalised in the past two years.
The corona crisis has left its mark on Bridgestone Corporation, with the Japanese firm reporting for the 2020 fiscal year its first net loss in 69 years, a loss of 23.3 billion yen (£159.2 million). The operating result also fell significantly: While revenue decreased 14.6 per cent to 3.0 trillion yen (£20.5 billion), adjusted operating profit plummeted 35.0 per cent to 222.9 billion yen (£1.5 billion), representing a 7.4 per cent return on sales.
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