Founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is an American multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Akron, Ohio. It is one of the oldest, biggest and best-known tyremakers in the world. Goodyear makes tyres for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, motorcycles, SUVs, racing cars, aeroplanes, farm equipment and heavy earth-mover machinery. Find all the news and analysis you need relating to Goodyear here.
John Gurrieri, CEO of South Pacific Tyres for five years, is leaving the company at the end of February after 29 years’ service to seek new challenges. South Pacific Tyres is a 50/50 joint venture between the Pacific Dunlop group and Goodyear.
Bridgestone is to join Goodyear, Continental, Michelin, Cooper, Pirelli, Yokohama and others in raising tyre prices in the USA to compensate for raw material price increases. Effective June 1st, Bridgestone tyre prices will rise 4%. Historically, Bridgestone has taken advantage of other manufacturers’ price increases in order to gain market share, so this latest announcement seems to indicate that this time the price rises will stick.
As part of the global alliance between Goodyear and Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI) Goodyear now owns 10% of SRI making the Americans the second largest shareholder of the Japanese company. The biggest one is Sumitomo Electric Industries owning 29.5%.
Goodyear has developed an agreement with Phase IV Engineering of Boulder, Colorado aimed at fully developing a tyre pressure monitoring system. After the recent agreements with Michelin and Cycloid Systems this is the third such agreement Goodyear has completed. The long term aim of this strategy is not only to develop a fully operational system, but to extend Goodyear beyond the automotive tyre field.
For the third time in a row, Goodyear has earned top honours in Fortune magazine’s Rubber and Plastics Product category of “America’s Most Admired Companies”. Among things measured were reputation, product quality, innovation, social responsibility and financial soundness.
After a bad year in 1999, Goodyear has announced that the company is now “on track” with its turnaround strategy.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber has taken a minority interest in the Cycloid Company, of Pennsylvania. Cycloid markets ACS (Air Compressor System) which uses a compressor mounted at the centre of the wheel to maintain air pressure in truck tyres. The companies are looking to develop similar systems for cars, vans and light trucks.
In the last few months Michelin, and to a lesser extent, Goodyear, have seen a growth in shareholders, although this has not helped to boost their share prices. The clear winner in terms of price gain was Pirelli. The shares of Continental, Bridgestone and Cooper were not in demand – surprisingly in Cooper’s case, as the company made a profit like in the year before.
With the exception of Peugeot, Porsche and Beru, other share prices from automobile and tyre companies have fallen to an all-year low. Companies in this category include DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen, Kiekert, Delco Remy, Delphi, Phoenix and Johnson Controls, as well as Continental, Cooper, Yokohama, Toyo and Goodyear.
Robert McEniry (52) has been named as Chief Executive Officer of the Tyre Unit in which Pacific Dunlop and Goodyear each hold a 50% stake. John Gurrieri gave up his post in February to seek new challenges.
Goodyear’s retread plant in North Bay (Ontario, Canada) is believed to be North America’s first Off-The-Road (OTR) tyre retreading facility to become ISO 9002 registered. The North Bay facility is Canada’s largest OTR retread operation.
Goodyear has won new and extended contracts for off-the-road tyres from the US Army, valued at $16 m. One is an $11.5 m deal to supply AT-2A traction tyres (size 14.00R20) for five-ton cargo trucks. The extended contract is for $4.5 m to supply the same tyres in size 16.00R20.
At a dealer conference in Las Vegas, Goodyear Chief Gibara explained to an audience of 4,500 tyre people the need for consolidation in 2000, following the recent aggressive expansion strategy. Gibara pointed out the importance of the personal touch despite the fast growth of e-commerce and the Internet. The fill-rate problem will be improved through shipments from Latin America, Eastern Europe and Turkey for the US replacement market.
Three Goodyear plants have become the first sites in the world to be certified under the new global ISO Technical Specification 16949. The plants are Fulda (Germany), Amiens (France) and the Luxembourg Technical Centre. TS 16949 is expected to be recognised as a standard by all car manufacturers worldwide.
Chevrolet is calling its 2001 Corvette Z06 “a production vehicle that’s ready for the racetrack.” The P265/40ZR17 (front) and P295/35ZR18 (rear) Eagle F1 Supercar tyres weigh 23.4 pounds less than the run-flat tyres. The weight savings comes from removing the run-flat reinforcements as well as using lighter weight internal components.
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