As reported yesterday, Michelin has officially opened its new Tweel factory in the US. The plant produces the airless tyre and wheel combination for off-road commercial applications, and at the inauguration the chairman and president of Michelin North America addressed recent speculation regarding the extension of Tweel technology to passenger cars.
Michelin’s Tweel factory has opened in Piedmont, South Carolina, USA, manufacturing airless tyres for commercial applications. From Piedmont, Michelin will boost output of its X Tweel SSL skid-steer tyres and begin production of the new X Tweel Turf as original equipment for John Deere’s Ztrak 900 Series line-up of zero-turn commercial mowers. The 135,000sqft facility is Michelin’s 10th in the state, and 16th in the US. The company said it would invest about $50 million in the new plant.
We’ve heard surprisingly little about Michelin’s Tweel in the decade since the airless tyre and wheel combination debuted at the Paris Motor Show 2004. After eight further years of development, the Tweel made its commercial debut in 2012, and Michelin recently announced the first original equipment Tweel deal, with John Deere. But while the Tweel has maintained a low profile, Michelin clearly has confidence in the product’s future, and on 20 November is opening a plant in the US that will be dedicated to Tweel production. The tyre maker hasn’t yet disclosed how much it has invested in the new Tweel facility in Piedmont, South Carolina, or the plant’s production capacity.
A ceremony has been held to mark the official opening of Bridgestone’s latest tyre factory. The grand opening of the Bridgestone Tire Manufacturing Vietnam Limited Liability Company (BTMV) plant in Hai Phong City, Vietnam comes half a year after production of passenger car radials began there. The opening ceremony was attended by guests from the Vietnam government, Hai Phong City, the Embassy of Japan in Vietnam, and representatives of companies from the automotive sector.
The agricultural tyre market appears particularly well suited towards specialised manufacturers; Trelleborg Wheel Systems acquired Pirelli’s agricultural business in 1999, with the branding switched between 2006 and 2010. Since acquiring various technologies from Pirelli, the Trelleborg Group has invested heavily in order to make its tyre and wheel operation a premium brand player in the agricultural and forestry tyre market. The Tivoli facility, with its buildings showing a manufacturing history dating back to the 1940s, but also incorporating the latest agricultural tyre building machinery, represents “a history full of innovation for farming professionals,” in president of the Agricultural and Forestry Tyres business unit, Paolo Pompei’s words.
Almost a year after Bridgestone’s plans to establish a joint-venture factory in Russia’s Ulyanovsk Oblast region were made public, groundbreaking was held at the site of the tyre maker’s future passenger car radial factory on 1 April. The facility will be erected on an 81 hectare site around 900 kilometres (560 miles) southeast of Moscow, and production is expected to start in the first half of 2016. Plant output estimated to reach approximately 12,000 units a day by the second half of 2018.
Ceat Ltd reports that production has resumed at its Bhandup facility following the fire that broke out in the plant’s raw material store on 23 February. Company managing director Anant Goenka shared with India’s Business Standard that the cause of the fire is still unknown, however sabotage has been ruled out.
Groundbreaking on Yokohama Tire Corporation’s new factory in the US will take place today, with a ceremony held at the Clay County, Mississippi plant site at 9:30am. The 23 September groundbreaking comes a day after Yokohama Tire Corporation held an honorarium event, at which it gifted US $250,000 each to Mississippi State University and East Mississippi Community College for workforce development efforts.
The China Rubber Industry Association reports that Double Coin is aiming to raise its annual all-steel truck radial production to 1.8 million units. The company is said to be accelerating work on its new factory, which is now expected to go on stream later this year.
Production at Michelin’s new factory in Chennai, India should be underway by November 2012. B Kumar, national sales manager for Michelin India’s truck and bus division, confirmed this date to the Press Trust of India, adding the tyre maker has already employed some 500 plant workers and “plans to hire more soon.” According to PTI, a workforce of around 1,500 is planned for the facility’s initial phase.
Indian off-road tyre specialist BKT reports progress on construction work at its new factory in Bhuj, Gurarat state is “perfectly in line with schedules.” Work began on the greenfield facility last December and the company anticipates its completion in the third quarter of 2012.
Double Coin Holdings has announced plans to invest at least RMB 3.18 billion (£301.5 million) establishing a wholly owned subsidiary in China’s Anhui Province. Within this subsidiary, known as Double Coin Huili Tire Co., the company will establish a new factory capable of producing 15 million tyres per annum. Double Coin will provide RMB 1 billion of the funds for the factory project, with the remainder coming from bank loans and from a RMB 900 million loan obtained from controlling shareholder Shanghai Huayi (Group) Company.
Kenya’s Business Daily newspaper reports Kingsway Tyres intends to open its own retreading factory by May 2010. The facility is anticipated to produce 1,000 truck and bus retreads per month, giving it’s the largest capacity of any retreading plant in the country. The tyre importer currently controls 25 per cent of the local market, the Business Daily comments. “With the new retread factory, we are planning to increase the market share to 35 per cent in the next five years,” stated Kingsway managing director Manoj Shah. The company has invested Sh50 million (£404,000) in the new factory.” Shah added that in the new plant Kinsgway is “introducing a new technology that could prolong the mileage span of a retread to almost 90 per cent."
B.F.srl, the ISO 9001:2000 certified wheel balancing weight maker, is offering an increasingly wide range of balancing weights made from zinc, lead, steel and tin, which it exported to more than 50 countries throughout the world last year. Recent investments in technologically advanced plant and machinery, have resulted in the establishment of a new factory for plastic coating treatment and the introduction of adhesive weights in steel galvanized, plastic coated with epoxy powders of grey and black colour. The latter comes in response to the company’s “constant attention and curiosity” of what is new in the wheels field. However, according to company literature B.F.srl’s offers another key strength to – it offers “a quality product at a very competitive price.”
Following a delay attributed to the economic slowdown, construction work on Kumho Tire’s new factory in the US state of Georgia is tentatively set to begin before the end of 2009. If work proceeds according to this schedule, the factory should be producing tyres in 2011, slightly more than a year after originally anticipated.
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