Following the establishment of their hydrogen mobility joint venture in March 2019, Michelin and Faurecia have reported that they have formalized the establishment of “Symbio, A Faurecia Michelin Hydrogen Company”. According to the two companies “Symbio, A Faurecia Michelin Hydrogen Company” combines all their hydrogen fuel cell dedicated activities, with the aim of becoming a world leader in hydrogen mobility.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company intends to completely acquire its joint venture tyre manufacturing facility in Mexico. It currently holds a 58 per cent share in Corporación de Occidente S.A. de C.V. (COOCSA), but has entered into a definitive agreement with partner Trabajadores Democraticos de Occidente S.C. de R.L. de C.V. (TRADOC) to acquire its 42 per cent stake. On Friday, a majority of TRADOC members voted in favour of the agreement.
Buried within the more than 134 pages of Qingdao Doublestar’s latest semi-annual report is the news that the state-owned tyre maker will extend China’s ‘one belt, one road’ strategy by working with a local partner to establish a tyre production facility in Algeria. The Chinese-language document states that its subsidiary Hong Kong Doublestar signed a joint venture agreement with El Hadj Larbi Pneumatiques during the reporting period.
The natural rubber supply chain is very complex. It includes around six million farmers, 100,000 intermediaries and over 500 processing plants. To bring greater transparency to the supply chain, two ‘top-five’ tyre makers are now cooperating with a third party in a joint venture: Michelin and Continental, together with IT agricultural specialist Smag, have formed a company to further develop and deploy a technological solution for mapping sustainability practices. The client-facing portion of this technology is a smartphone app called Rubberway.
Michelin has responded to news published by Reuters yesterday regarding a joint venture with Continental and French agricultural IT services company SMAG. It confirms that the three parties will enter into a joint venture, however it will not be – as stated by Reuters – related to tyre production.
Maxion Wheels and new joint venture partner, Dongfeng Motor Parts and Components Group, have held a groundbreaking ceremony at the future site of their 22,000 square metre aluminium wheel plant in Suizhou, China. The ceremony took place on 6 June and was attended by government officials and company dignitaries, customers, suppliers and associates.
Maxion Wheels, the world’s largest wheel manufacturer, has entered into an agreement to form a new passenger car aluminium wheel joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Parts and Components Group, one of China’s largest automotive parts companies. The new legal entity, Dongfeng Maxion Wheels, will build a new two-million per year capacity plant in Hubei Province, China. Series production is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2020.
In 2017, Michelin stated that hydrogen “ticks all the boxes” for its vision of sustainable mobility. The company’s activities in this area are now moving forward with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to create a new joint venture that will bring together all of Michelin’s fuel cell related activities, including its subsidiary Symbio, with those of automotive parts manufacturer Faurecia.
Shanghai Baolong Automotive Corporation (Baolong) and Huf Hülsbeck & Fürst GmbH & Co. KG (Huf) founded the BH SENS joint venture in China, Europe and the USA in January 2019. The goal is to use the joint venture to integrate the experience and capabilities of Baolong and Huf in the TPMS sector. As a result BH SENS will be one of the world’s largest suppliers of both Original Equipped (OE) and Independent After Market (IAM) TPMS solutions, meeting the diverse demands of customers in passenger vehicle, commercial vehicle and Off the Road markets.
Scandinavian Enviro Systems AB has signed a memorandum of understanding with EE-TDF Cleveland, LLC, a US tyre-recycling company. The agreement remains in effect for six months, has an option to extend, and opens up opportunities for additional joint venture plants with an annual recycling capacity of 30,000 tonnes tyres.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company is to form a joint venture with Sailun Vietnam Co, Ltd to build a 2 million capacity truck and bus radial manufacturing plant. Subject to closing and government approvals, the facility will be located near Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, at the site of Sailun Vietnam’s existing operations, which early in 2018 signed an offtake agreement to produce Roadmaster, Dean and Starfire brand tyres for Cooper. The new announcement represents the latest move in a series of cooperative moves between the two firms – Sailun Jinyu invested in joining Cooper in its GRT JV in September.
Trelleborg Wheel Systems is investing in a two-wheel tyre factory in India. According to the company, the investment forms part of Trelleborg’s strategy to “strengthen its positions in attractive market segments”. Currently Trelleborg’s mostly makes two-wheel tyres in Europe. Products include tyres for selected niches, such as enduro and motocross, as well as scooters,
mopeds and motorcycles.
Pirelli Tyre Russia and Rostec have placed their signatures upon a memorandum covering plans to more than double production capacity at the Voronezh Tire Plant in southwest Russia. This agreement formalises the long-held aim of increasing capacity at the joint venture facility from 2 million to more than 4 million passenger car tyres per annum.
With the completion of Pirelli’s acquisition of a 49 per cent stake in Jining Shenzhou Tyre Co., the tyre maker’s management assume operational responsibility for the joint venture company’s consumer tyre plant in China. Pirelli states that the new plant will provide it with the “necessary production flexibility” it requires within its ‘High Value’ segment to accommodate the evolving Chinese market as well as expected developments in electric vehicles and the growing share of original equipment homologations obtained in China, Japan and Korea.
Russia and Saudi Arabia will finalize several joint projects by the end of 2018, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak recently told journalists. The projects referred to see Saudi Aramco partner with Russain firms Sibur and Novatek. The Sibur plant plans centre on a particularly significantly sized rubber factory.
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