According to one Japanese publication, Yokohama Rubber will launch a second car tyre line in Europe this year under the Alliance brand name. The Nikkei Asian Review reports that the Alliance-branded passenger car tyres will be manufactured in Japan and that European retailers – it names the UK, France, Germany and Spain as four target markets – may have stocks of the tyres by May 2017.
The GT Radial SportActive became available around a year ago as a new flagship tyre for the brand, distributed in the UK by Micheldever. Towards the end of 2016, Giti Tire held an event for its wholesale partner and a large group of its most successful dealers in Vilamoura, Portugal, with track-based demonstrations of the tyre’s capabilities at Portimao’s Autódromo Internacional do Algarve. GT Radial has leveraged a racing partnership before to market the tyre in the UK; it partnered consumer high performance driving magazine Evo for its popular 2016 series of track day events at the Bedford Autodrome, making its tyres available for amateur racing enthusiasts to try out on vehicles such as the Audi S3, Golf GTI, BMW 340i and Toyota GT86.
The company supplying as many as a fifth of all car tyres fitted to new vehicles manufactured and sold in China is preparing for the European launch of its flagship brand, and has its sights on both the original equipment and replacement markets in our region. With its new, designed-for-Europe Giti range, Giti Tire aims to become “an established original equipment supplier and recognised technology partner in Europe.” Three product lines will be introduced into a key initial market in the coming months ahead of a wider European rollout.
Prices for truck and bus tyres sold by Bridgestone Europe rose today, and a new price structure will also apply to car and motorcycle tyres as of 1 January 2017. The average price of Bridgestone and Firestone truck and bus tyres has gone up by one per cent, while passenger car and motorcycle tyre prices will increase by an average of three per cent. The revisions are non-linear and vary across the different product ranges.
Davanti has launched its latest passenger car tyres; a product designed to meet the needs of the growing SUV market, and one for the compact car market. The former is the DX740, engineered to offer SUV drivers a balance of wet, dry and muddy grip, and a comfortable drive in any conditions on any surface. For drivers of smaller cars the DX240 is designed for low noise in addition to good all-round performance characteristics in wet and dry conditions. The tyres were previewed in October, and are now available alongside the rest of its growing range.
A successor to Hankook’s Ventus Prime² has been launched in readiness for the European summer. No prizes will be awarded for guessing what the new tyre is called – Hankook has chosen to carry over the successful Ventus Prime name into the range’s third generation. Tyrepress.com will cover this new flagship comfort tyre in detail following a hands-on launch event early next month, however what we can tell you now is that Hankook claims the Ventus Prime³ delivers approximately eight per cent better wet braking and three per cent greater dry braking performance over the predecessor tyre, along with nine per cent more wear resistance.
Hercules Tire will showcase its latest tyres at SEMA 2015 in Las Vegas. Located in Booth #43079, the company will feature new consumer lines, such as the ultra-high performance Hercules Raptis R-T5, new medium truck tyre offerings, and new sizes in popular existing Hercules products.
Davanti has announced the upcoming launch of two new tyres in January. The company – part of the Oak Tyres Group – says the new models are a result of increasing demand for Davanti from the market. The two tyres are the DX740, a commercial van tyre suitable for SUV applications, and the DX240, designed for smaller passenger car applications.
Yokohama’s W.Drive V905 winter tyre has followed the strong showing of the Advan Sport summer tyre in the UK’s EVO Magazine tyre test, with a set of strong performances in tests across Europe. In three separate reports, two in Germany and one in Switzerland, the tyre finished among the top ranked products.
SMMT figures show that new car registrations in the UK reached their highest-ever September total last month. 462,517 cars were registered in September as buyers took advantage of a range of competitive deals on the latest 65-plate, making it the 43rd consecutive month of growth in the market. This marked a rise of 6 per cent for the month and the highest September on record.
Giti has previewed its forthcoming ultra-high performance flagship tyre for its leading GT Radial brand. Eventually replacing the GT Radial UHP1 and HPY, the GT Radial SportActive currently has eight 17 and 18 inch sizes in production at its Hefei, China plant, the manufacturer’s senior product marketing manager Fabio Pecci-Boriani told Tyrepress during the launch of the brand’s Savero SUV tyre in Barcelona. The manufacturer will also have a further “22 sizes in production by the end of the year”, he added, with 40-50 sizes in total available by June 2016. These sizes will include some suitable for high performance SUVs. The SportActive is a significant milestone for the company; it is the first to feature Giti’s “Optimal Casing Construction” (OCC) technology, with the project led by the company’s European research and development centre in Hanover, Germany.
Auto Express has named the Nokian Weatherproof as its number one all-season car tyre in its survey of the segment. Testing a modest six tyres at Nokian’s test centre in Ivalo, Finland for winter conditions and at Contidrom, Germany for summer conditions, the test was a first for the magazine, highlighting the growth trend Tyrepress.com has noted in the UK market for such products. The Nokian Weatherproof was declared the test winner, and an Auto Express ‘Best Buy’, perhaps unsurprisingly sweeping away the competition in the winter tests (the winter rubber specialist uses Test World to test its tyres). The test’s most notable omission is Michelin’s self-professed “game-changer”, the 2015 launched CrossClimate. The French manufacturer has responded hawkishly to references to the new product as an all-season tyre despite its year-round applicability, though tyre test coordinator Kim Adams noted that its March 2015 launch was “just too late” for the tyre to be included.
The Europe-wide Firestone Music Tour, part of the relaunched brand’s efforts to reach a vibrant, youthful audience through music, will make its UK stop at Reading this weekend. The Bridgestone second-line brand’s ‘Roll on the Summer’ consumer campaign has been taking place in participating garages across the UK, offering a series of prizes for every tyre sale made, including a top prize of VIP tickets to the Reading Festival itself.
Two products in what Triangle Tyre calls its ‘new generation’ of passenger car tyres have been officially launched in the European market, and Triangle says the new lines – the Protract and Sportex – represent the start of its strategy of filling existing gaps in the Triangle portfolio and ensuring its range is completely up to date.
Another of Goodyear Dunlop’s European plants has today announced plans to cease a portion of its production in addition to the planned withdrawal from Wolverhampton. Tyrepress sister site Reifenpresse.de reports that Goodyear Dunlop Tires Germany informed its employees of its intention to relocate remaining car tyre production from Wittlich to other plants within the region EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa). PCR production has been shifted away from the plant gradually for several years, with the latest announcement completing cessation of Wittlich’s production of these products.
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