Whether its raw materials, machinery, research and development or the latest manufacturing trends, this tag provides up-to-the-minute insights into the upstream part of the tyre industry.
The first phase of the China-Pakistan joint all-steel radial tyre plant, Service Long March (SLM), has been officially put into production, with an annual output of 740,000 sets of all-steel radial tyres.
Brembo and Chinese brake manufacturer Gold Phoenix have signed a 50:50 Joint Venture agreement to create Shandong BRGP Friction Technology Co. Ltd, the first large scale Brembo manufacturing facility fully dedicated to producing aftermarket brake pads. Brembo and Gold Phoenix have agreed to invest 35 million euros in the project over the next three years. Shandong BRGP Friction Technology Co., Ltd is expected to start operations in early 2023 in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province in Eastern China.
As markets and events have reopened during the course of 2022, Triangle has hit the road in a significant way, meeting with and communicating to existing and potential customers alike at events and exhibitions across the continent including: Tire Cologne in Germany, Autopromotec in Italy and the Hillhead OTR event in the UK. Tyres & Accessories met up with executives in Germany, Italy and on home territory in order to find out more about Triangle’s latest products and its increasingly quality-focused European strategy.
At 22:20 on April 7, a mechanical injury occurred within the Banbury workshop on the west side of Hankook’s Jiangsu, China plant, causing the death of the operator of a Banbury machine. Recently, the government department where the factory is located released an investigation report on the incident.
Two Chinese tyre manufacturers, Shandong Huasheng Rubber Co., Ltd. and Shandong Haoyu Rubber Co., Ltd., suffered administrative penalties in June due to production safety issues. Both companies are located in Guangrao County, Dongying City, Shandong Province.
During the recent Tire Cologne event, Tyres & Accessories met with Hankook Europe’s top management including president and chief operating officer Sanghoon Lee; Dietmar Olbrich, vice president of marketing and sales at Hankook Germany; Byung Ryong Lee, vice president of marketing strategy in Europe; Guy Heywood, vice president sales, marketing and business strategy for truck and bus tyres in Europe; vice president of European Technical Centre, Klaus Krause; Massimo Cialone, chief specialist for compounding and materials.
Having previously confirmed that tyre production would begin at the company’s Serbia factory during July, Toyo Europe executives are now specifying that tyres will begin rolling off the production line by the end of the month. When full production gets underway, the factory will be pioneering in green electricity terms since it will utilise bifiacial solar panels.
Sentury is in the process of declaring its Spanish factory plans as a strategic industrial project with the government of Garcia, Spain. The tyre maker hopes that its plant in the As Pontes region of Garcia will be able to use this method to obtain fast-track approvals to speed up the entire project’s construction.
The recent publication of Shandong provincial government’s 2022 six department work plan states that the authorities are promoting the elimination of outdated production capacity. Within that, it is worth noting that the tyre industry is described as a regulatory priority. Specifically, if a tyre manufacturer’s annual output cannot reach 1.2 million all-steel radial tyres (excluding engineering tyres, aviation tyres and wide-section tubeless tyres) or 5 million semi-steel radial tyres (excluding run-flat tyres, high-end racing tyres, and ultra-low profile tyres), it is highly likely to be forced to integrate or exit.
Kordsa is cooperating with SES RFID Solutions GmbH to provide RFID tags for vehicle tyre identification and tracking. According to the company, Kordsa’s collaboration with SES RFID Solutions combines the patented SES technology with Kordsa’s materials to develop “a small, flexible RFID tag to embed in vehicle tyres before vulcanization.” The two companies announced their collaboration on 5 July.
Guizhou Tyre Vietnam plant’s first-phase project has officially begun operation with an annual output of 1.2 million all-steel radial tyres. This equates to between 2500 and 2800 units and the products are mainly sold to the United States, Europe and other regions that have implemented anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations on Chinese tyres or imposed special tariffs. The tyre maker said that the first-phase project’s production and sales are still in the ramp-up stage.
The recent news that Sailun Tyre plans to invest 17.48 billion yuan in setting up two factories in Dongjiakou, Qingdao, has received widespread coverage in Chinese media. The investment in the tyre factory is 15.18 billion yuan, involving 20 million sets of semi-steel radial tyres, 10 million sets of all-steel radial tyres, and 150,000 tons of OTR tyres. The investment in the 500,000-ton new material factory is 2.302 billion yuan. Sailun’s various production bases will mainly use the material factory’s products. According to Sailun’s calculations, the Dongjiakou tyre factory will achieve 21.9 billion yuan revenue and 2.96 billion yuan profit yearly. The annual turnover of the material factory is 12.035 billion yuan, and the average annual net profit is 923 million yuan.
The first tyre manufactured at Linglong’s Serbian factory – an “all steel radial truck and bus tyre” – rolled off the production line at 6:58am on 27 June 2022 China time (23:58 European time). Whatever the precise time, production on 27 June fulfils Linglong Tire chairman Wang Feng’s commitment that the factory would enter its initial manufacturing phase before the end of the first half of 2022.
Linglong Tires has confirmed earlier reports that trial tyre production at the company’s Serbia tyre manufacturing plant will commence by the end of the first half of 2022. In other words, the first tyres will roll off the Chinese tyre manufacturer’s Serbian production line by the end of June. Mass production is the next stop. However, since the first date refers to trial production, Tyres & Accessories understands that it will take till around August for the factory to achieve more deliverable output volumes.
China’s economy appears to have stalled since 2022. Recent data shows that the value-added of the manufacturing fell by 4.6 per cent year-on-year in April. An integral part of the national manufacturing machine, China’s tyre industry is also under pressure. “The most important task of our enterprise at this stage is to survive,” one Shandong tyre factory owner told Tyres & Accessories.
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Chaoyang Long March
Mike’s Photography; Pixabay
Stephen Goodchild; Tyre Industry Publications Ltd
Huai’an Economic & Technological Development Zone Administration
Huasheng Rubber
Tyre Industry Publications Ltd
没电的话筒; Pixabay
Guizhou Tyre
Sailun
Linglong