How time flies. It seems like just the other day that William Harley and the Davidson brothers were tinkering about in a machine shop in Milwaukee, but the motorcycle brand that bears their names has now reached the ripe old age of 110. Harley-Davidson intends to celebrate this milestone throughout the year, and Dunlop has been chosen as the official tyre sponsor of the company’s global anniversary events.
The presence of Dutch off-road tyre company Magna Tyres Group at April’s Bauma 2013 show in Germany was appropriate, given the attention Magna has paid the country – and Europe as a region – over the last six months or so. Our German affiliate publication Neue Reifenzeitung was present at the show and spoke with Magna’s marketing and sales director, Berto Beulenkamp, who outlined the company’s latest activities.
Bridgestone’s voluntary efforts to reduce carbon emissions have been praised by the Freight Transport Association. The tyre maker shares that FTA climate change policy manager Rachael Dillon has “welcomed” the work Bridgestone is carrying out, following the Department for Transport’s overall commendation of self-regulation across the sector.
At last Friday’s Michelin Annual Shareholders Meeting in Clermont-Ferrand, France, a dividend of €2.40 per share, with a reinvestment option, was approved. The dividend will be paid in cash or reinvested in shares on 24 June 2013.
Bridgestone UK’s tyre monitoring app is now being rolled out across other European markets. According to the company, the sales force assisting ‘Challenge’ app works by calculating the true cost of tyres over time and shares the performance data with all other users, before providing performance comparisons against competitors’ tyres – all on the user’s tablet.
Deployed in 2012, the technology has revolutionised Bridgestone’s sales process and is now regarded as a strategic tool, after being created by RNF Digital. Bridgestone’s product and marketing manager Andy Mathias said: “We are proud of our innovative use of technology to help serve our customers and sales force. The application that we developed in the UK is now being used across Europe and is even being trialed in North and South America.”
Almost precisely seven years after Edouard Michelin’s fatal accident, his father and legendary head of the Michelin-clan, François Michelin (87), has granted French weekly magazine Paris Match a rare interview and divulged a glimpse into his emotional life. François Michelin, whose daughter-in-law, Edouard’s wife, Cecilia died of cancer in 2011, today lives in retirement home in Auvergne, free from every luxury.
Following Kumho Tire USA’s second recall of thousands of tyres in the US, Liberty Tire Recycling released a statement claiming it was unaware the tyres it received from Kumho had previously been recalled in August 2012 and were slated for destruction. “We were not made aware of any NHTSA safety recall that applied to these tyres when we received them last summer,” the company said, adding that the tyres were “not properly incapacitated by Kumho and were not under a 'destroy-only' contractual agreement.”
On 13 May, the Schaeffler Group gave notice of its intention to terminate the mutual investment agreement it has held with Continental AG since 2008. The agreement will terminate in May 2014.
Vittorio Malacalza resigned from Pirelli & C. SpA on 10 May, stepping down from the position of deputy chairman and member of the board and prompting a clarification from the company’s corporate headquarters in Milan.
Vulcanisation is known to be bottleneck in tyre production that can significantly influence a factory’s output. Siemens specialises in the field of automation and as such it aims to provide the tyre industry with “greater efficiency” in this particular area. The company displayed its product range at February’s Tire Technology Expo in Cologne, Germany, and Tyres & Accessories spoke with Stefan Morgenstern, senior business development manager for the company’s Industry Automation division, about the ways Siemens can enhance efficiency in the tyre manufacturing process.
Online tyre retailer Delticom shares that it has now rolled out its Delticom Efficiency Class Index, or DEX label, in all its European portals. The company describes DEX as a “further development” of the classification set out in the EU tyre label and says that its provides a “convenient guide” for choosing summer and all-season tyres.
Tom Masuguchi has been promoted to Yokohama Tire Corporation’s senior vice-president, chief strategy officer and deputy chief financial officer. The former vice-president and chief accounting officer began in these new positions on 1 May.
Bridgestone Europe will transfer its shares in Nokian Tyres plc to Bridgestone Corporation on 7 May, the Japanese tyre maker told Nokian. This agreement decreases Bridgestone Europe’s ownership in Nokian to less than five per cent of share capital and Bridgestone Corporation’s ownership to over 15 per cent of the share capital.
Approximately 40 Nokian Tyres plc staff members – people identified as “key” employees – will benefit from an incentive programme approved by the company’s Board of Directors. According to Nokian, the aim of the programme is to combine shareholder and key employee objectives in order to “increase the value of the company, to commit the key employees to the company, and to offer them a competitive reward plan based on earning the company’s shares.”
It’s official – the UK has avoided entering into a triple-dip recession. Figures published by the Office for National Statistics show that, following the 0.3 per cent contraction that was witnessed in the last three months of 2012, the UK economy expanded by 0.3 per cent in the opening quarter of this year. At the start of May, Rob Shelley, founder of Suffolk-based freight forwarding specialist Maritime Cargo Services, spoke with Tyres & Accessories about this development and other issues influencing the cost of shipping tyres across the ocean.
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