Amtel-Vredestein N.V. has announced that it has begun production of its Amtel brand of tyres at the Moscow Tyre Plant-M; only weeks after the company announced its intention to acquire the factory. The company has also met its promise to make the plant more environmentally friendly by shutting down rubber mixing at the facility.
Korean company Hyosung Corp. is to take over four tyre cord plants from Goodyear Tire & Rubber for an undisclosed price, although various sources are quoting a figure of $80 million. Hyosung will acquire 100 per cent of Goodyear subsidiary Utica, plus it will assume control of the tyre manufacturer’s cord factory at Decatur. The other two factories are sited in Luxembourg and Brazil. In addition to the acquisitions, Hyosung has struck a deal – reportedly worth $3.2 billion – to supply Goodyear with tyre cord.
Bridgestone is stepping up efforts to build support for the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) Foundation’s “Make Roads Safe” campaign, creating public attention and collecting petitions at F1 Grand Prix races and other events. The aim is to keep up the pressure on politicians and get road safety onto the G8 and UN agendas in 2007.
Infinity, the private brand label, has complemented its range of passenger car, van and 4×4 radial with 15 sizes of winter tyres. The tyres, produced for UK based Goldspark Trading Ltd by the Shandong Linglong Company in China, have been well-received throughout Europe in their first year of distribution.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Europe launched its Weathermaster Snow winter tyre in May 2006 ready for the winter selling season. This T-speed rated tyre is available in 21 sizes, covering 13 – 160-inhc rim diameters. The broad range of sizes fit many small and medium cars from the new Peugeot 107 to Ford Focus and VW Golf.
CGS Tyres UK Ltd (formerly Mitas UK Ltd) was established in 2004 with the main objective of meeting its UK customer’s needs and requirements for the replacement and original equipment markets. CGS Tyres are the sole importers of Mitas, Continental, Semperit and Barum Agro/Industrial and off-road tyres from the Czech Republic. CGS Tyres operate from Kings Lynn, Norfolk and carries a full range of products including: agricultural (radial and cross ply), earthmover, forklift, motorcycle (road, speedway, motocross and kart), multipurpose and implement tyres.
Trackday driving is a fast-growing activity for drivers who want to see exactly what their cars are capable of, but often the car will not go where it’s pointed – and nine times out of ten the tyres are the biggest influence. Jerry Freeman of Service & Sport, official tyre partner of Easytrack, Europe’s biggest trackday event organiser, says that there’s a handful of key rules that can turn a trackday nightmare into a driving dream. A former Pirelli motorsport specialist with thousands of racing support miles under his belt, Freeman says 99 per cent of the problems are invisible to the layman.
At the end of 2005 Continental introduced what the company describes as “a novel wheel/tyre system” which it believes could revolutionise the fitting of industrial tyres. Called the CSEasy, the tyre can be fitted on any Lemmerz-type rim without using a mounting press and using only a special, conical-shaped adapter and a torque wrench.
The Port of Felixstowe recently welcomed the arrival of nine rubber-tyred gantry cranes from Zhenhua Port Machinery Company (ZPMC) of Shanghai. The arrival of the new machinery means that the Port has invested in forty-one gantry cranes from ZPMC since 2002, bringing the total number on Trinity Terminal to over 100.
General Rubbers, the manufacturer of Midas brand of tyre retreading materials, has recently been certified as a Star Export House by the Ministry of Trade and Finance. This was in recognition of the excellent growth in sales of its products in international markets over the past few years.
Hofmann has been one of Europe’s top names in lifting for a decade. A year ago the company celebrated the 10,000th two-post lift with baseframe sold in Europe. Now another milestone has been achieved, 10 years ago the MTF3000 baseframe-less lift, recently sales passed the 5000 unit mark.
Pincott Europe Limited, have been developing a new “Smart” blade which unusually is not flat, but is produced in the form of a sine wave. This sinusoidal shape allows the blade to cut progressively across the face of the tyre and not in a straight line as all other blades do. This has the effect of breaking up the surface more evenly and cutting the rubber from the tyre in a much smoother fashion.
Bridgestone Corp. has reported that first half operating profit fell 8.7 per cent to 84.11 billion yen (£382 million) on account of raw material costs. Net profit dropped 67.7 per cent to 32.82 billion yen (£146.6 million), partly due to a one-off pension-related gain of 80.8 billion yen in the year-earlier period.
Bosch has been a major player in the automotive battery sector ever since the company began its pioneering work as far back as 1927. Things are very different nowadays from nearly eight decades ago; the addition of electric windows, sunroofs, ABS, air conditioning, other in-car equipment such as DVD players and satellite navigation has resulted in increasing demand on the modern power supply and a reduced battery life. However, continuing investment in research and development ensures that Bosch batteries continue to consistently meet market requirements, with little or no increase in overall size or weight.
With a TV audience estimated at over a billion people, the Maxxis British Motocross Championship is attracting a huge following around the world, according to the company. The series is currently seen in almost 500 million homes throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas, according to a report from Greenlight Television, which signed a TV deal with the Auto Cycle Union in February.
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.
