Pirelli began testing its prototype 2014 F1 tyres at the Bahrain International Circuit yesterday, and while the official data gleaned from the 2013 cars run by the Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and Torro Rosso teams is a closely-guarded secret, the tyres that took to the track in Sakhir are rumoured to make for slower lap times than those achieved during this year’s season.
Since its launch earlier in 2013, the Enaikoon TMS has already been installed on vehicles at two UK quarries. At Hanson Aggregates’ Shap Beck Quarry near Penrith, a CAT775 haul truck was recently fitted with TMS external sensors and the Enaikoon TMS.
While no-one is saying the climate is easy or the market is booming, Continental Tyre Group estimates that the worst is over and the UK market currently totals some 35 million passenger car tyres a years. Of course the fact that the same experts also suggest that around 10 per cent of this is made up of part worn sales remains problematic, but this is tempered by the fact that UK market has been leading Europe in terms of new car registrations recently, which all points to increased growth of large and higher performance sizes in the next two to three years. And what’s more Conti’s UK representatives suggest that the new European tyre label is already beginning to have an impact, despite other sources both agreeing and disagreeing with this position. Tyres & Accessories caught up with Continental’s passenger tyre segment brand manager (which includes car, 4×4 and van in the role’s remit) Peter Robb at the company’s annual trends briefing in central London on 6 December to find out more.
With 26 days till the end of the year, the latest year-to-date new car registration figures collated by the SMMT show that that registrations have been strong across the UK, but especially in Wales. Every country in the union registered near double-digit growth, with the slowest growth (9.48 per cent) taking place in bar far the largest part of the market – England. Here registrations in the period totalled 1.781 million from 1.627 million last year.
Cam Systems is launching its 30th anniversary with an online campaign including a new website at the beginning of 2014. The company will demonstrate its connection to tyre industry retailers, manufacturers, fleets and wholesalers in under the campaign header, ‘Connecting the tyre industry’.
Speaking at the close of this year’s MotoGP season, Bridgestone’s motorsport manager Hiroshi Yamada shared that in 2014 the tyre maker’s race experience will be brought to market in a pair of new products. “We will be releasing two production Battlax motorcycle road tyres next year that will draw on recent MotoGP technological developments,” commented Yamada. “Both these tyres will probably be the purest example to date of our ‘racetrack to road’ concept and will offer exceptionally high levels of safety, performance and control to consumers.” The motorsport manager added that 2014 will be a “big year for Bridgestone both on and off-track.”
The DTM season ends this weekend at the same place where it began in May, the Hockenheimring. While the drivers’ title has already been won by Mike Rockenfeller (Audi), and Augusto Farfus’s overall second place is unassailable, the BMW could achieve the rare feat of claiming two DTM races in the same year at the course in Hardtwald. In the third year of its involvement in the touring car series, exclusive tyre partner Hankook’s newly developed option tyres have provided an extra dimension to every DTM race.
In the USA, the Tire Industry Association (TIA), in partnership with LogMyCalls, will host a webinar on Thursday, October 10, at 12pm (US Eastern time) entitled “The 5 Most Important Marketing and Sales Metrics for Tire Businesses.” In this webinar, presented by McKay Allen, Inbound Marketing Manager at LogMyCalls, tyre dealers will learn about how to measure their marketing efforts, what to track, and how to track it.
The National Association of Motor Auctions (NAMA) has published its Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) market report for August. The report shows that during July the average values of used LCV’'s at auction across the board rose by just 1 per cent from £4,188 to £4,224 between July and August. Total sales volumes increased 18 per cent from 6,007 to 7,101 units.
MAM Software has announced that Bosch UK is recommending MAM CarSide to its network of Bosch Car Service Centres. The new vehicle health check (eVHC) mobile app will sync with BCS Online, the Bosch recommended garage management system powered by MAM Software. Hosted in the cloud, BCS Online is a feature-rich browser-based garage management system that manages and optimises every-day workshop tasks.
The Dexel Tyre Group has chosen CAM Systems' UniSerV application suite to provide the company with process efficiencies and "a seamless transactional solution for the challenging commercial environment".
In July Dominique Aegerter broke the Moto2 lap record for the Mireval circuit by nine-tenths of second. According to the company, Dunlop carried out extensive analysis on data from the tyre test and continued work on the Moto2 range including work on tyre stress and a new rear tyre specification for 2014, or possibly during the remaining races in 2013, with Aegerter from Moto2 riding in addition to the Dunlop test team with Stefan Nebel and two riders from the IDM championship. The tyre has previously been tested by Rabat and Terol in Argentina.
Trimble Navigation has launched a tyre monitoring system for commercial and off-road vehicles. The Trimble TirePulse Tire Monitoring System wirelessly measures tyre temperature and pressure data and conveys these from the jobsite to give real-time tyre pressure and high temperature alerts. Trimble says the system helps fleet managers and site supervisors schedule cost-effective preventative tyre maintenance, extend tyre life, increase fuel efficiency and avoid blowouts.
Halfords Autocentres reports it has seen its customer satisfaction scores hit 93 per cent following a new customer experience management (CEM) strategy in partnership with Empathica Inc., a provider of Customer Experience Management (CEM) solutions.
Since appointing Empathica 12 months ago, Halfords Autocentres has reviewed the feedback of over 52,000 customers which has allowed the business to implement operational changes that deliver immediate impact to the customer experience. With good value and customer loyalty key measures for the business, customer feedback levels following their visit have been reassuringly positive – with 89 per cent of customers reporting that they received value for money and 87 per cent stating they would recommend Halfords Autocentres to their friends and family.
The introduction of an option tyre this year in DTM was something of an unknown quantity, as teams had no previous data or experience with which to predict its performance. With one set available only for the race, it was always going to be interesting to see how they would be used, and the tyre supplier to the German touring car series (competing in international locations) believes that its influence has had a positive effect on the action, heading into the second half of the season at the Moscow Raceway this weekend. Hankook says the softer compound Ventus Race Plus has allowed drivers to set faster lap times in the first 30-60km of use, before the tyre’s performance drops off to levels below those offered by the regular Ventus Race tyre. It is constructed to behave in this way purposely to allow for more tactical racing, and with five races won by five different drivers (albeit with one subsequently disqualified), the top five in the drivers’ standings within 24 points and all manufacturers with at least one race victory, Hankook argues that the tyre has helped make the series more competitive.
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