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.
A County Antrim farmer has taken delivery of a new set of tractor tyres after winning at the annual Goodyear AGRI Club draw. Ivan Anderson, of Rasharkin Co Antrim, joined Goodyear’s dedicated advice service for farmers, the AGRI Club, in February 2012 and just 8 months later was the lucky member to have his name picked out of the hat at the British Ploughing Championships in October 2012.
The organiser of the Latin American & Caribbean Tyre Expo reports that numerous well-known industry names have committed to exhibiting at this year’s show. Companies making an appearance on the exhibitor list include Sailun Tires, Triangle Tyre, Cooper Tire, Continental Tire Mexico, Bridgestone Tire Costa Rica, Goodyear Central America, Sumitomo Rubber Latin America Ltda., Double Coin Latin America, Euromaster, S.A. / Michelin, GT Radial Tires, Titan Tire Corp., TBC International, CEAT Limited, BKT and Aeolus.
As we saw in March, the new Goodyear EfficientGrip comes in at BA 65dB on the European tyre label. With further additions said to be on their way, this puts the manufacturer in a leading position both within its own stable (Dunlop offers dry and high performance biased characteristics that don’t look as good as this on a label) and in the wider market. Following the introduction of the latest EfficientGrip Goodyear Dunlop reports that it covers three out of four sizes of Europe’s high performance summer tyre market tyres labelled CC or above.
Goodyear has announced that construction work on the first of its new generation of airships has begun. The Zeppelin LZ N07-101 airship is being built by Germany’s ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik and will be assembled at Goodyear’s Wingfoot Lake Hangar near Akron, Ohio. LZ N07-101 and other craft built by Zeppelin will ultimately replace Goodyear’s fleet of blimps.
Bridgestone may remain as the world’s most valuable tyre brand, according to new brand valuation research by Brand Finance, but there are actually four tyre brands in the top 500 list.
The annual Brand Finance Global 500 showed that while Bridgestone suffered some slippage from 2012 and Michelin gained some ground, the Japanese tyremaker’s lead brand retained its top spot. Bridgestone placed 254th overall on the global rankings, down from 2012 placement at 235th. The brand was valued at $4.5 billion, up slightly from 2012’s $4.4 billion valuation, earning a brand rating of AA-.
The UK Department for Transport (DfT) has announced plans for green paper on the safety of young drivers. According to the government, this could mean that young drivers could benefit from “improved training and lower insurance premiums” as a result.
The proposals were made on Monday 25 March at a summit for the motor insurance industry hosted by the DfT. Representatives from the Ministry of Justice, Department for Health, insurers and consumer organisation uSwitch were also present.
Goodyear is currently celebrating picking up two Which? Magazine Best Buy awards. The latest issue of Which? Includes tests on 225/45 R17 and 185/60 R15 products, with Goodyear’s Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2 tested in the former category and its EfficientGrip Performance in the latter.
Subaru of Indiana Automotive, the US-based plant that produces some 250,000 Subaru and Toyota vehicles each year, has named three tyre makers as recipients of its annual Quality & Delivery awards. At an awards ceremony on 13 March, the company presented awards to 33 parts suppliers, including Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations and Continental Tire the Americas.
Goodyear has revealed details of its latest efforts to take a lead in the post-labelling era of tyre development, refreshing its passenger car range with the launch of the Efficient Grip Performance. While the tyre is inched out of the highest possible European Tyre labelling score (AA), with the 205/55 R16 tyre scoring AB 68dB it is not far away at all.
Goodyear has introduced its EfficientGrip Performance tyre line at the Geneva motor show. The range will ultimately be available in 90 sizes from 14 to 18-inches, with 23 sizes available as of the start of March 2013. According to Goodyear, 21 tyres out of the currently-sold 23 tyres in the EfficientGrip Performance portfolio has been given an ‘A’ label rating for wet grip and a ‘B’ rating for rolling resistance, plus what the tyre maker says are “some of the lowest decibel values available on the market for such a range of sizes.”
According to French news reports, nineteen police officers have been injured during protests outside Goodyear’s offices in Paris. The violence is said to have occurred when the works council from the company’s Amiens Nord factory met to discuss the terms of the plant’s closure. Several hundred workers from the factory assembled outside the headquarter buildings, burning tyres and pelting their opponents with paintballs and other projectiles. Six police officers required hospitalisation as a result of their injuries. One demonstrator is reported to have been arrested.
Just a day after Bridgestone announced it will close its passenger car tyre factory in Bari, Italy, DB Equity Research Automotive analyst Gaetan Toulemonde comments that the tyre industry has reduced its passenger car tyre capacity in Western Europe by 38 million units. Toulemonde puts the current Western European passenger tyre market at 275 million units; 65 million are supplied to OEM customers, the remaining 210 million are sold on the replacement market. This number, Toulemonde adds, has remained stable over the last five years – the decrease in local production being compensated by higher imports such as those from China, which have doubled over the last five years to 50 million units a year.
Directors at Goodyear Tire & Rubber have declared a quarterly dividend of US$0.73 per share of mandatory convertible preferred stock. The dividend is payable 1 April 2013, to shareholders of record on 15 March 2013. The payout represents an annual rate of $2.9375 per share.
Upon announcing the outcome of its 2013 summer tyre test, held in partnership with consumer foundation Stiftung Warentest, German motorists’ organisation ADAC noted that this latest test marks the 40th anniversary of its first tyre test. In 1973 – an “exciting time” for tyres due to the replacement of cross-ply with radial models – the ADAC used an Opel Rekord 1900 as a test vehicle to evaluate 25 tyres.
Goodyear India Ltd. has reported a 2012 fiscal year net profit of Rs 563.2 million (£6.9 million), 12.8 per cent lower than the previous year’s result. Net sales for January to December 2012 amounted to Rs 14,812.9 million (£181.5 million), down 2.2 per cent year-on-year, while profit from operations before other income, finance costs and exceptional items was Rs 711.7 million (£8.8 million), a year-on-year decrease of 23.2 per cent.
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