GRI launches new website
GRI has upgraded its website (www.gritires.com). Now, according to the company, it features “streamlined navigation and recognizes the farmers, construction workers and forklift operators who move the world.”
GRI has upgraded its website (www.gritires.com). Now, according to the company, it features “streamlined navigation and recognizes the farmers, construction workers and forklift operators who move the world.”
Over the past seven years, Hankook has firmly established its range of hot retreaded Alphatread tyres in many European markets. What began in Great Britain as part of a joint venture partnership is now being given a new boost in Central Europe. With the takeover of Reifen Müller in 2018, Hankook is now also the operator of its own retreading operation, which is being gradually expanded into a fully-fledged Hankook factory retreading factory – something colleagues at our German sister publication Neue Reifenzeitung found out. Now that Hankook is also manufacturing Alphatread tyres for Germany and neighbouring markets, the medium term is about much more than just a new product range: Hankook wants to redefine its position as a service provider on the commercial vehicle tyre market and establish itself as a system supplier. Customers in other European markets should also benefit from this.
This article appears in full in the September edition of Tyres & Accessories’ Retreading Special supplement. Subscribers can read the supplement online here. Not yet a subscriber? You can change that here.
Tym International will cease trading from 30 October 2020, effectively winding up the tyre import and wholesale business specialising in Far Eastern-produced and OTR tyres. Writing in a letter dated 8 September, managing director Steve Eke explained “the decision to cease has been forced upon the company by others that control the majority of the shares in the business”. Tyres & Accessories understands that the combination of recent business pressures caused by EU anti-dumping truck tyre tariffs and then coronavirus caused major shareholders to withdraw their investment.
TyreSafe has named the speakers for its first fully online briefing on Thursday 17 September at 14:00.
There is no doubt that the all-season tyre segment is one of the fastest-growing in the European market, and it is not difficult to see why; while some countries routinely experience extreme weather conditions in the winter months, much of the continent does not suffer to the same extent. As such, many countries – such as the UK, for example – have never developed a strong winter tyre market.
The majority of industries across the UK have been impacted by the effect of COVID-19 and – with up to 60 per cent of garages closed during lockdown – the tyre industry is no exception. Prevailing market conditions combined with the complexity of the pandemic’s damage means that insurers have reduced their risk exposure and overall capacity. This, combined with newer pressures on the horizon, has provided tyre companies with a rationale for bolstering their risk management measures in order to avoid costly and time-consuming slip-ups down the line. Tyres & Accessories spoke with Ben Harrison, vice president, Marsh Commercial in order to find out more.
The University of Plymouth published government-funded research into what happens to particles released from vehicle tyres back in May. This comparatively recent report – as far as academic research is concerned – was launched with no-small media fanfare amid claims that tyres “could be a significant and previously largely unrecorded source of microplastics in the marine environment”. Be that as it may, the research also highlighted a number of significant knowledge gaps in this field of research.
Bridgestone Turanza Eco tyres have become an original equipment for Volkswagen’s eighth generation Golf. The new model includes a number of cutting-edge technologies, such as a semi-autonomous mode and a new suspension technology improving its handling and driving dynamics. The custom-designed Turanza Eco tyres add to this technological focus. They are designed to enhance the Golf 8’s upgraded driving dynamics, with the tyre manufacturer’s Enliten Technology reducing rolling resistance, weight, and materials consumption. VW has also approved Nexen’s N’blue S and Winguard Sport 2, and Vredestein’s Sportrac 5 and Wintrac Pro tyres as OE for different iterations of the Golf 8.
Click here to learn more about Bridgestone’s Enliten Technology
4×4 tyre sales may have fallen due to the effects of coronavirus and lockdown, but prices in certain key sizes are actually higher than they were before those challenges presented themselves at the start of the year. Tyres & Accessories spoke to tyre market and pricing data experts Encircle Marketing in order to find out more.
This article will appear in full in the September edition of Tyres & Accessories. Not yet a subscriber? You can change that here.
Transaid ambassadors Guy Heywood (Hankook) and Marcio Bonifacio (Z Tech Control Systems) are determined to raise vital funds for the charity despite the pandemic-enforced postponement of two major cycling events. The pair will complete the planned 507km route of the 2020 Transaid Malawi Challenge virtually between Wednesday 9 and Sunday 13 September. They will use SMART bike trainers and the Zwift cycling app from their homes in Frankfurt and Cambridge to simulate 10km of climbing and between 15 and 18 hours of riding. Heywood told Tyres & Accessories that the pair are trying to raise enough in sponsorship to buy two cycle ambulances or to fund a health care worker in Africa for one year. Thanks to the technology, Heywood assured T&A that the riders would “suffer suitably to justify any support given!” Click here to support Guy and Marcio in helping Transaid to continue its mobility and new health projects in Sub Saharan Africa, including new initiatives focusing on Covid-19, gender-based violence and malaria.
The launch of the second-line Laufenn brand onto the European commercial vehicle tyre market has rounded out Hankook’s offer to fleet customers. Offering a second tier brand – alongside a growing retreading programme via its Alphatread range – can both allow the manufacturer a more extensive product range to cater to each customer’s entire fleet, and also allow Hankook to capitalise on the growing interest in more value-oriented products. The new tyres, which give Laufenn itself impressive market coverage, also help to emphasise one of Hankook’s competitive advantages; the proportion of products under three years old in its TBR portfolio. The timing of the launch could also help to address the economic strife felt by the logistics sector in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Featured in the September issue of Tyres & Accessories, we spoke with Guy Heywood, Hankook’s European marketing and strategy director for its truck and bus business, and UK sales director Paul Emery about how the introduction of Laufenn will help to develop the tyre manufacturer’s commercial business in the UK and Europe.
This article will appear in full in the September edition of Tyres & Accessories. Not yet a subscriber? You can change that here.
4×4 retail tyre sales have long been a growth area and the UK market constitutes one of the leading lights in Europe. More recent growth has been driven by similarly strong SUV vehicle sales as well as consumer switches towards all-season products. At the same time, more practical and off-road-orientated vehicles have also been supporting 4×4 tyre sales.
This article will appear in full in the September edition of Tyres & Accessories. Not yet a subscriber? You can change that here.
Produced at its Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa truck and bus radial tyre manufacturing plant, Sumitomo Dunlop has launched a new drive-axle truck tyre. Locally researched, produced and tested, the SP835A is described as a “game changer”.
Nokian Tyres has launched the Intuitu agricultural tyre monitoring system (introduced at Agritechnica 2019) in Finland. Nokian Tyres Intuitu uses sensor-equipped smart tyres and a smartphone app to get tyre pressure and temperature data on your phone. Nokian Tyres has launched the Intuitu agricultural tyre monitoring system (introduced at Agritechnica 2019) in Finland. Nokian Tyres Intuitu uses sensor-equipped smart tyres and a smartphone app to get tyre pressure and temperature data on your phone.
Michelin is coordinating 7 industrial partners, 5 Research & Technological Organizations (RTOs) and an innovation cluster into a European consortium designing pioneering processes to produce new tyres from end-of-life tyres (ELTs). The project, called BlackCycle owing to its focus on developing a circular economy for tyres, is run across five countries.
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