Apollo Tyres joins TyreSafe
Vredestein UK managing director Stuart Jackson also serves as the chairman of TyreSafe, so it is safe to say he is pleased to welcome the safety organisation’s latest member – Vredestein’s parent company Apollo Tyres.
Vredestein UK managing director Stuart Jackson also serves as the chairman of TyreSafe, so it is safe to say he is pleased to welcome the safety organisation’s latest member – Vredestein’s parent company Apollo Tyres.
The American Le Mans Series’ LMP2 prototype category has become something of a Dunlop specialism in recent seasons, the tyre supplier says. In 2011, Dunlop supplied winning vehicles’ tyres in both International and European Le Mans Series, as well as the Le Mans 24 hour race with Greaves Motorsport. This year, all but one of the teams in the American Le Mans Series, in addition to all the teams in the European series and the new FIA World Endurance Championship’s LMP2 category, have chosen to run on Dunlop tyres. In the latest round of the ALMS, Christophe Bouchut and Scott Tucker led a one-two finish for Level 5 Motorsports at the Baltimore Sports Car Challenge, the Dunlop-shod team’s second overall win in ALMS with the Honda Performance Development ARX-03b prototype.
Hankook has expressed its delight at the start of a new partnership with the UEFA Europa League, which “kicked off” on 3 September. Representatives from the tyre maker and the football league celebrated the arrangement at a ceremony prior to the official 2012/13 UEFA Europa League Group Stage draw at the Monegasque Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. Reporting the occasion, Hankook said the new partnership represents “yet another milestone in the company’s European marketing approach to sustainably increase brand awareness in one of the tyre manufacturer’s most important markets and reinforces Hankook’s long-standing engagement in European football.”
At present Yokohama Rubber is in the process of winding up the joint venture it operated in Vietnam for the last 15 years and intends to integrate this into its local subsidiary. The company announced on 4 September that the three joint investors in Yokohama Tire Vietnam Company (YTVC) – Yokohama Rubber, Southern Rubber Industry Company (Casumina), and Mitsubishi Corporation – began preparing to end the joint venture company in August as part of what Yokohama Rubber calls the “enhancement” of its tyre manufacturing and marketing operation in Vietnam.
While no-one in the tyre industry claims to have bypassed the combined effects of the credit crunch, euro-crisis and the consequent recession(s), it is fair to say that these economic phenomena have had particularly marked effects on the commercial vehicle tyre market. First of all, as a direct result of customer demand scaling back, truck makers cut down on vehicle production, with the tyre manufacturers responsible for supplying these OEMs forced to follow suit. As fleets responded to falling demand for their services and extended the life of their tyres as far as possible (as well laying up trailers and cannibalising tyres whenever they could), what began as a demand shock in the OE side of the business developed into a replacement slump as well.
Concirrus Ltd has announced that it will add PressurePro’s Tyre Pressure Monitoring System technology to its Mobile Devices Telematics Market Place. The company is the developer of the open telematics OS and telematics hardware, and under the agreement, facilitated by Concirrus, Mobile Devices will integrate PressurePro’s tyre pressure information into the Morpheus embedded framework, allowing users easy access to the pressure data through a new set of standard APIs. The company says the agreement was prompted by the increasing need for reducing costs and risks related to under-inflated tyres, and to respond to legislation in Europe and the US promoting pressure checks and penalising those running on under-inflated tyres.
With European tyre labelling set to become mandatory on truck tyres in a matter of weeks, Tyres & Accessories published some 20 pages of in-depth coverage on what this all means for the market in last month’s August edition. Nevertheless we barely scratched the surface and one has to admit that the majority of tyre labelling reporting leans towards the passenger car side of things.
AlloyGator, designer and manufacturer of a British-made alloy wheel protection system, has announced the appointment of Auto4 as its UK distributor. The company says the agreement will help strengthen its UK distribution and support significant growth. Curt Rathbone, managing director of AlloyGator, said: “We are delighted to announce the appointment of Auto4 as a key distributor. Auto4 is an organisation with a well established reputation for service and commitment to the trade which is well placed to provide support and advice to stockists and fitting centres – we look forward to a long and successful partnership.
Team Falken’s strong tyre performance and experience in last year’s victory allowed it to score a repeat performance at the Baltimore stage of the American Le Mans Series in the GT class. Having spent limited time on the track during practice, including some “light contact with the wall”, Team manager Derrick Walker chose Falken’s 2011 Baltimore tyres over the “new generation” tyres. “We relied on our track record at Baltimore, and the rest was indeed history,” stated Kevin Jones, Falken’s ALMS supervisor.
Pirelli has upgraded its Apple and Android Diablo Super Biker app, allowing routes travelled to be downloaded and viewed directly on computers and tablets. This, the company says, will make it easy to compare them and facilitate sharing on social networks. The upgrade represents a continuation of the company’s digital and social media strategy. The app has been downloaded more than 100,000 times, averaging 328 downloads per day in the last two months, the company says. The Pirelli Moto Facebook page, launched at the beginning of 2012, has grown to more than 140,000 fans. The Italian manufacturer believes increased social networking leads to greater proactive interaction from customers and end-users on a daily basis.
Shandong Linglong Tyre Co. Ltd. first introduced its Green-Max passenger car tyre range in 2011, and said the new line-up met with wide acclaim. During 2012, the company has continued to expand the range, and at present a total of 69 Green-Max dimensions are available for 13 to 20-inch diameters. Recent additions include more high performance dimensions, including the increasingly popular 245/45WR17.
Trelleborg Wheel Systems says its naming as official partner for the Massey Ferguson “Vision of the Future” event strengthened its strategic partnership with its agricultural OEM customer. The event, held at the company’s tractor manufacturing headquarters in Beauvais, France between 22 August and 1 September, was attended by more than five thousand agricultural professionals from across Europe. The Swedish tyre maker showcased its latest innovations in the field of sustainable farming during the event, along with its latest tyre and complete wheel solutions.
McLaren’s Jenson Button completed a dominant weekend to win the Belgian Grand Prix. Only second-placed Sebastian Vettel could match the Briton’s ability to look after his tyres, using an almost identical one-stop strategy – medium compound P Zero White tyres, changed to hard compound P Zero Silvers just before the midway point – to finish 13 seconds behind Button, who led from start to finish. This was the first race at which a driver has achieved this in 2012 While Button’s imperious drive would have taken some beating, Vettel’s ascent from tenth on the grid was aided by a spectacular smash involving Championship leader Fernando Alonso and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton at the first corner, over which Lotus’s Romain Grosjean has been handed a one-race ban.
A fire broke out in the mixing department of Apollo Tyres’ Kalamassery on the evening of 2 September. According to a company statement, nobody was injured in the blaze. Fire crews battled the fire for several hours before gaining the upper hand, and machinery and rubber is said to have been destroyed. Apollo says the unit will be out of commission several days. In the meantime, alternative arrangements for supplying mixed compound have been made.
Goodyear Dunlop has reportedly sold the commercial tyre component of its Beaurepaires fast fit network in New Zealand. Fairfax News NZ shares that the commercial tyre service centres in the country’s North Island have been acquired by Carters Tyres, and by Tyre General and General Tyres in the South Island. The Beaurepaires retail operation will remain in Goodyear Dunlop’s hands.
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