Towards the end of this month, Toyo Tire & Rubber will move into a new headquarters building. The Japanese manufacturer will relocate some ten miles, from Nishi-ku, Osaka to Itami, Hyogo. The move will take place on Sunday 28 May and see Toyo housed in a new six-storey building next to the company’s Tire Technical Center. Operations at the new headquarters will begin the next day.
Researchers from Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI) and two Japanese universities have received an award from Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The Science and Technology (Development Category) award was bestowed upon the five researchers during the 2017 Commendations for Science and Technology and was given for their contribution towards tyre development through the coordinated utilisation of advanced technologies.
In less than 11 months, Yokohama Rubber will achieve the venerable age of 100. The Japanese tyre, wheel and rubber products manufacturer, which began life on 13 October 1917, has unveiled a new logomark for its centenary year. Yokohama Rubber says the logomark’s design “expresses the company’s pride in its 100-year history as well as its appreciation of its many customers, business partners, and other stakeholders around the world who have helped make this 100th anniversary possible.”
Travis (Ho-chan) Kang, chief executive officer of Nexen Tire, has taken part in the official inauguration of a new joint venture company set up to sell the Nexen and Roadstone tyre brands in Japan. The joint venture is called Nexen Tire Japan Inc. and is 51 per cent owned by Nexen Tire, with Toyota Tsusho Corporation, the Toyota Group’s trading arm, holding the remaining 49 per cent share.
Last year’s acquisition of Alliance Tire Group by Yokohama Rubber has now been followed up by the purchase of a further off-road tyre specialist. An agreement was reached today on Yokohama Rubber’s planned acquisition of Aichi Tire Industry Co., Ltd. Shareholders of the Japanese industrial tyre manufacturer have consented to Yokohama Rubber’s purchase of all shares for an undisclosed sum, and Yokohama plans to complete the acquisition by March 2017. After this date, Aichi Tire will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yokohama Rubber.
Yokohama has extended its agreement to supply its global flagship Advan racing tyres as the sole control tyre for the All-Japan Formula 3 Championship Series through until the end of 2019. The extension means Yokohama Rubber will be the sole tyre supplier to the championship series for nine straight years, starting from 2011.
Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical and Zeon Corporation are setting up a joint venture company to facilitate the integration of both firms’ solution styrene butadiene rubber (S-SBR) businesses. The resulting company will be called ZS Elastomer Co. Ltd. (ZSE) and will be 60 per cent owned by Zeon Corporation, with Sumitomo Corporation holding the remainin 40 per cent share. Sumitomo Chemical and Zeon will each succeed the rights and obligations of the sales and R&D functions their respective S-SBR business to ZSE.
Kobe Steel, Ltd. has launched a new tyre testing machine, a tyre uniformity machine called the Librota-GS. According to the company, the new model has the world’s fastest cycle time of 18 seconds per tyre and the world’s highest repeated measurement accuracy.
Kobe Steel is regarded as a top manufacturer in the field of uniformity machines, with an estimated 30 per cent global market share. Kobe Steel plans to supply the new model to tyre makers in North America, Europe and regions throughout the world, aiming to capture further share of the market.
Open access scientific journal eLife has published the result of joint research into Hevea brasiliensis rubber particles conducted by Sumitomo Rubber Industries and the Graduate School of Engineering at Japan’s Tohoku University. In addition to their publication in eLife, the results were also presented at the International Rubber Conference (IRC 2016 Kitakyushu) in Japan on 26 October.
Yokohama’s research on ‘Highly accurate fluid analysis and data mining for next-generation silent tyre development’ has received an Excellent achievement research project award for general-use research themes undertaken using the High Performance Computing Infrastructure (HPCI). Yokohama’s research was conducted in cooperation with the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), a research arm of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), HPCI is promoted by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The award was announced at the third project report meeting of the HPCI System Including K computer, held at the Kokuyo Hall in Tokyo’s Minato Ward on 21 October.
Bridgestone recently announced its intention to increase capacity for radial aircraft tyre production at its Kurume plant in Japan. The company has now amended the statement it released on 17 October, changing the investment amount; rather than investing US$2.1 billion in the project as previously reported, Bridgestone states that the actual investment figure is 2.1 billion yen (£16.5 million).
Rebellion Racing has claimed the endurance trophy for LMP1 privateer teams with two races remaining at the 6 Hours of Fuji. All teams used Dunlop’s medium compound tyre with some using strategies involving four stints. Rebellion has worked with Dunlop to develop tyres and the partnership has resulted in strong on-track performance. The Imperatori, Kraihamer and Tuscher driver line-up took another class win this weekend in the Rebellion R-One.
Capacity for radial aircraft tyre production at Bridgestone’s Kurume plant in Japan is set to increase in response to an anticipated rise in demand for these products over the medium to long-term. Bridgestone Corporation will invest a total of US$2.1 billion in the project; while the company hasn’t reported the size of its planned capacity increase, it states that the project should be complete by the end of 2018.
The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. is to establish a tyre research & development centre in North Carolina, with R&D activities scheduled to start this September initially in the greater Charlotte area. The company presently conducts R&D on tyres for the North American market in several US states and in Japan, but aims to consolidate the majority of these R&D activities at the new centre. With the consolidation, Yokohama also plans to double the current size of its North American R&D staff.
Japan has just approved a law allowing rear-facing cameras to replace mirrors on cars. Could this spell the end for car mirrors?
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