Kia Motors Slovakia has produced the one millionth vehicle at its factory in Zilina – a white, diesel-engined cee'd SW. The car was immediately handed over to a Slovakian children's charity, the Red Nose Clowndoctors.
Mitas has cured the first test tyre at its new Charles City, USA facility, which is currently in the testing phase. “Mitas can make tyres in Iowa,” said Pavel Charvat, president and plant director. “This test tyre is the first tyre produced by Mitas on the American continent. Now, Mitas is tweaking the machinery, streamlining processes and training workers for the Charles City plant to be ready for serial production in April.” The exact date of the official opening of the plant and start of serial production will be announced in due course.
India’s Ceat Limited has released its results for the quarter between 1 October and 31 December 2011, a period in which net sales rose 18.2 per cent to Rs 10.48 billion (£132.45 million). Yet the tyre maker reports that “results for the quarter were adversely impacted by an illegal stroke of workers at [the] Nasik factory” which lasted from 30 September to 22 October. And when Ceat says results were adversely impacted, it means that quarter net profit sank 52.3 per cent year-on-year to Rs 23.90 million (£302,000).
The Russian Legal Information Agency reports that Moscow Commercial Court today posted its hearing of the Moscow Tire Plant’s bankruptcy case until 16 February. The postponement is said to have been instigated as lawyers representing creditors did not produce any evidence justifying their decision to vote for the factory’s bankruptcy. The creditors have claims amounting to 742 million roubles (£15.3 million) in relation to the out of service Moscow Tyre Plant.
Exhaust manufacturer, Milltek Sport showcased new sponsorship deals, fitments and continued investment in its UK factory at Autosport International. The company will be a series sponsor of the MSA UK Time Attack series for the next three years, during which it will be the “Official Exhaust of Time Attack”. Milltek says the series, which includes road cars “with F1 power levels” will allow the company to participate in “a valuable two-way flow of technical information” between top teams and Milltek’s own engineers.
Although six of the world’s top 20 largest tyre manufacturers are located in China and/or Taiwan, and despite the fact that all of these have global ambitions, for the most part these companies are still developing their positions in international markets. Likewise while reams have been written about the top names and more recently there has been increased coverage of the activities of the Korean bloc (Hankook, Kumho and Nexen), far less detail is reported about the leading Chinese players. It has to be said that this is partly because of the media’s gravitation towards well-known names but is also because – and this is something of a generalisation – Chinese manufacturers don’t have the best reputation when it comes to international communications.
Oxfordshire specialist automotive exhaust manufacturer, Primary Designs has announced that it has moved to a larger new factory in Thame, Oxfordshire. The move to a purpose-built 6500 square feet factory was prompted by an increasing order book and diversification into classic, performance car and aerospace sectors, and will lead to recruitment for new manufacturing jobs at the site. Primary Designs said increased demand from Formula One, coupled with the company’s decision to grow its range for Ferraris, Porsches and other supercars as well as develop entirely new sectors had allowed it to upscale its manufacturing operation.
Another new name to Tyres & Accessories was Toyama Tyre Corp., Ltd., a company that reportedly runs its own factory in Shandong Province’s rubber city, Qingdao. The leadership of the business is said to have moved to China after having originally established itself as Japanese entity. In fact the company takes it moniker from the Japanese city of the same name.
Cooper Tire’s keeping mum about the progress of negotiations linked to its Findlay factory, but the union representing workers offers comment on the ongoing saga almost daily. The United Steelworkers reported today that solidarity events in support of the locked out Findlay workers are being planned across the US, and it also shared that workers at Cooper’s recently-acquired ex-Trayal plant in Serbia have already pledged their support and demanded the company end the lockout.
Following the installation of a new cooling tower for process water, Michelin has managed to slash some 1,500 MWh from its Dundee plant’s annual energy consumption. The key to the savings is the new installation’s AC drives, which were supplied by Emerson Industrial Automation company Control Techniques. These AC drives control the speed of fans and pumps and match supply with demand; Emerson comments that when the cooling plant is idling, its energy consumption is now the equivalent to that needed to boil your cup of tea.
The passenger car tyre plant inaugurated in May is not Continental’s only tyre factory planned for the Chinese city of Hefei; on 9 December the company broke ground on a two-wheel tyre facility there. The factory, which will mainly manufacture mountain and racing bicycle tyres for China and Asia, is expected to enter service in December 2012. According to Constantin Batsch, head of Continental's Two Wheel Tyre business group, initial production capacity should be 1.7 million units per annum.
The Nizhnekamsk SSC Tire Factory has began production of a new size rear axle fitment for its Kama N 202 series range; the new addition is a 295/80 R 22.5 fitment. In a statement announcing the new tyre’s release, the Russian tyre maker shares that its Kama ‘N’ series tyres with a 202 index are “designed to run on asphalt, rough terrain or dirt roads at any time of the year at temperatures from -45°C to +55°C.”
Sporting events in the US don’t get any bigger than the Super Bowl, and the American football game’s halftime show is a magnet for leading musical acts. In past years The Who, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and U2 have made appearances, and on 5 February the Bridgestone-sponsored halftime show will feature no less a talent than Madonna.
Looking back on 2011 and forward to the coming year, Rick Phillips, Yokohama Tire Corporation’s director of commercial sales, states that the tyre maker expects the strong demand it has experienced in the North American market this year to continue. “Demand has continued to outweigh supply so we have literally sold everything that we are able to build,” he commented. “As an industry, we will go into 2012 with very little beginning inventory, much like we did in 2011…we see the demand continuing to be greater than supply, at least through next summer. Despite reports on the economy being on the brink of another recession, the trucking industry remains strong.” Phillips believes that high levels of demand, particularly within the OEM segment, may lead to further pressure upon the replacement market.
Vietnam’s Southern Rubber Industry Joint Stock Company, or Casumina, has reportedly signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a US partner and will erect a new passenger car tyre factory. Work on the new plant should begin before the end of the year and the project’s stated total cost is VND3.7 trillion (around £112 million), including an investment of some £19 million from the US partner. The factory is expected to enter operation late in 2012 and have an annual output of 1.5 million tyres per annum. Two thirds of the new factory’s output is said to be earmarked for the US market; other named export markets are Canada and Australia.
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.