World Champion Italian cyclist Ivan Basso was at the Kenda Tyres booth at Autopromotec on 24 May. Between 10:00 and 12 noon the cycling star signed autographs and met with fans. The tyre conection is that Kenda tyres is currently the official tyre sponsor of the Cannondale Pro Cycling team based in Milan, Italy.
Kenda has launched a new passenger car tyre designed with a strong focus on decreasing fuel consumption. Hosted by Varga Trading Co., Kenda director James Lo unveiled the newly developed eco tyres in a presentation that also showed the new tyre’s low noise pattern design, addressing another EU tyre label category. Other speakers included Dr Hongder Chang, Kenda’s general manager, who outlined the company’s goal of generating sales of US$2 billion, and dealers Mohammad Shahid, from Pakistan and Nassib Daher from Lebanon. The KR 30 is manufactured in Taiwan.
In the future 81 per cent of the UK population will be living in urban areas. There will be 200 million connected devices and one in four British citizens will be shopping online – the highest number in the world, per capita. The over 65s will represent a fifth of the population. The country’s South East region will grow to become the second largest region after London, accounting for 15.3 per cent of total GDP. That’s all if Frost & Sullivan’s 'New Mega Trends in the UK' analysis, which looks forward to 2025, turns out to be correct. However, even if there are only half right the flavor of what might take place in the next year if of interest to all sectors of the industry.
Speaking at the Tire Technology Expo in February, Adam Page, UK-based business manager of reports and consultancy at Smithers Rapra, shared on the global market for green tyres – the subject at the heart of the company’s latest tyre industry market report, the Future of Green Tires to 2017. One significant projection Page shared from the Smithers Rapra report is that although the value of green tyre market is expected to grow by more than 56 per cent between 2012 and 2017, green tyres based on sustainable and bio-materials will likely play a comparatively minor role in this growth.
Michelin expects its business to gain momentum in China in the coming years, propelled by a fast increase in vehicle sales. This was the word from Philippe Verneuil, president of Michelin China, upon the opening of the company’s $1.5 billion factory in Shenyang. The facility’s opening has been reported by the China Daily, which writes that the Shenyang plant, Michelin’s largest factory in the world, has an annual capacity of more than 12 million car, truck and bus tyres.
In an interview with Institutional Investor magazine, which covered topics ranging from BRIC region outlook to the euro crisis, Pirelli CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera shared that the number of new products the tyre maker intends to introduce in the next few years will represent a doubling of its recent programme.
Fan Rende, chairman of the China Rubber Industry Association, shares that China has launched a plan to develop ‘green’ tyres. The plan calls for half of China’s tyre makers to be capable of manufacturing fuel-efficient tyres by the end of the country’s current five year guideline in December 2015, and for half of these tyre makers’ output to be green tyres by the same date.
According to the results of Hankook Tire America’s “Spring Gauge Index”, 61 per cent of drivers in the US would be interested in buying eco-friendly tyres. The main reason for making such a purchase is the potential fuel savings they’d deliver; Hankook’s study shows that 68 per cent of drivers who’d buy eco tyres gave this reason as their motivating factor.
At its annual press conference on 22 March, specialty chemicals company Lanxess reported record sales and earnings figures during the 2011 financial year. Highlights the company touched upon were a 23 per cent rise in sales to 8,775 million euros, EBITDA pre exceptionals up 25 per cent to 1,146 million euros – the first time the one billion euro mark has been exceeded. The company’s EBITDA margin pre exceptionals came in at 13.1 per cent, compared with 12.9 percent the year before. Net income rose disproportionately compared with sales and EBITDA pre exceptionals, improving by one third from the previous year to 506 million euros. These positive results were achieved, the company stated, thanks to its price-before-volume strategy, successful acquisitions and focus on the emerging markets.
In a guest editorial for Reuters, Lanxess CEO Axel Heitmann has described low rolling resistance tyres as being a primary focus for the specialty chemicals company. “As the fastest growing sector in the tyre industry, “green tyres” have enormous growth potential and increase globally by around ten per cent per year. In Asia demand is currently increasing by as much as 14 per cent annually,” he stated. “Our position is therefore clear: Lanxess will continue to build on its leading position and expand its production capacities, particularly in Asia.” Heitmann expanded upon the Asian theme by sharing that Lanxess will produce 140,000 tonnes of Nd-PBR-rubber per annum at a new site in Singapore by 2015.
A new range of Toyo eco tyres is scheduled for release in Japan next February ahead of its launch in other regions, including Europe. Known as the Nanoenergy, the new tyre has been developed with a focus on reducing rolling resistance; Toyo says the tyre boasts a ‘AAA’ rolling resistance rating according to the labelling system introduced by the Japan Automobile Tyre Manufacturers Association (JATMA). This, the label’s highest rating, is given to tyres with a rolling resistance coefficient lower or equal to 6.5.
As Hankook Tire’s vice president, Pae Ho-youl, recently said, green tyres will be a tyre industry “keyword” in the coming years. It is thus no surprise that the company unveiled a new product at the SEMA show in the US. During the trade fair Hankook Tire America unveiled the second-generation enfren eco, a product it says was “specifically designed for fuel efficient and hybrid vehicles and offers consumers an energy saving, low rolling resistance replacement tyre with all-season performance.”
Nexen Tyre Corporation is supporting the ‘Pink Ribbon’ international campaign against breast cancer in Korea for the first time. Tyre manufacturer Nexen Tyre said it wants to increase awareness of the illness and highlight the importance of check-ups.
Goodyear’s EfficientGrip tyre has been awarded The Green Innovation Award by GreenWorks, a Luxembourg platform dedicated to companies sensitive to environmental impact and initiatives that favour sustainable development. “This award values all the efforts the Goodyear Innovation Centre, Luxemburg (GIC*L) team has made to reduce the CO2 footprint with innovative technologies applied not only to the EfficientGrip tyre, but to all our newly developed tyres,” said Marc Junio, general director of GIC*L. “Such innovative technologies are required in light of the upcoming EU regulations, which require tyre labelling containing fuel efficiency, noise and wet performance information as of 2012.”
Nokian tyres have recently won a run of high profile magazine test in Europe. “Very recommendable” was the “ADAC judgement” for the Nokian H in the summer tyre test 2010 of the German Automobile Association ADAC, the “test quality judgement” of the consumer protection organisation Stiftung Warentest praised: “Nokian H good”.
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