VMI looks back at 25 years in China
Often when we see the words ‘VMI’ and ‘China’ used in the same sentence, the context is a court ruling or copyright infringement. But although such issues are significant, they tell by no means the entire story of VMI in China. The company is now looking back at its 25 years in this market, a period it describes as one of “extraordinary change in the Chinese tyre industry” – change that “VMI has been at the heart of it.”
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Our growing digital archive led to some blasts from the past
Earlier this year a retired tyre industry veteran got in touch to ask if we wanted any of his old copies of Tyres & Accessories. While our archives stretch all the way back to our first edition in 1946, outside the British Library there were some gaps in the first couple of decades. So, we jumped at the chance. The offer of vintage editions from the swinging 60s also comes at a time when we are working hard on digitising our back catalogue. So far, the 132 copies going back to 2010 have been through the process and are now available online. And the first decade of the millennium (2000 to 2010) is also well underway. From here, the goal is to work back in time until we have a full complement. So, should you want to look into the history of your company or find out what happened in the tyre business on an important date such as an anniversary – our digital archive will be there to help you reminisce. And if there is a particular historic article you think we should digitise sooner rather than later, please get in touch via theeditor@tyrepress.com to let us know which edition we should transfer to the digital realm and why.
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Raw material as well as shipping costs to remain headwinds
At the start of 2021 we published a headline suggesting that “shipping costs [were] temporary” and “price increases less so”. While that article was based on the latest third-party data as well as the expert opinion of a leading wholesaler, it now looks like shipping cost woes are set to continue well into 2022 and that – while they have softened recently – raw material costs will remain headwinds during the next year or so as well.
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NDI expanding rim plant to meet growing global demand
In response to increased global demand from the farming sector for customised rim solutions, NDI Group is increasing capacity at its rim factory in Brørup, Denmark. It is doing so through an expansion of its production facility, and describes the work carried out as a “first step”. NDI anticipates completing the expansion in early 2022.
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They were good years – an obituary for Tyres & Accessories’ publisher, Klaus Haddenbrock
On 25 August 2021, we received the tragic news that Klaus Haddenbrock had passed away, aged 77. The team at Tyres & Accessories, along with those from our sister firms in Germany and Italy, join the Haddenbrock family in mourning a man who was a role model to those who knew him well, a source of ideas and, above all, someone with whom we could share our cares and troubles as well as our interests. We will sorely miss our publisher and managing director, and our grief is only mitigated by the fact that his death – while years too soon – was sudden. This is how he’d wished it.
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Comment: Tyre fitters are here to stay
In addition to the latest news and analysis, July’s edition of Tyres & Accessories features the aftermarket, van tyres as well the agricultural/industrial/speciality tyre sector. The latter has proved to be amongst the most resilient sectors during the turbulence of the last year or so. The former two reflect changing market dynamics. In short, many things have changed in the automotive and tyre spaces. And the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated that change. But some things stay the same.
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Tyres Industry Publications: the next 75 years
The consumer tyre advice site WhatTyre and a new paywall-free digital archive of Tyres & Accessories magazine lead a range of new services from Tyre Industry Publications. The 75-year milestone for Tyres & Accessories magazine is not just a moment for retrospection. Our industry is in a state of technologically inspired flux. The past 18 months of crisis and upheaval have also been a catalyst for increasing the pace of change. At Tyre Industry Publications (TIP), we have taken this opportunity to consider the role our independent tyre industry media outlets play in the rapidly changing present and future. Our value-added information continues to offer a vital service to the tyre business but presenting this information in the right way for our readers is crucial. It also presents the ideal place for the most targeted advertising to trade buyers and – with our new consumer facing site WhatTyre – in-market audiences.
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Three-quarters of a century and still going strong
This month we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the publication of the first edition of Tyres & Accessories back in June 1946. Looking back to those immediate post-war years, comparisons can be made with the emergence from lockdown 75 years later. In the post-war period, the then still pioneering automotive business played a key role in the recovery process along with the intrinsically connected tyre trade. This time round, if the adaptability and resilience of the tyre business during the last 18 months of Covid-19-related disruption is anything to go by, things will follow a similar pattern. In both cases such events evoke genuine gratitude for the contacts, customers and friends we all have in the business. So, it is in that spirit that we begin the 75th anniversary celebrations that will continue throughout the month of June here at the front of the magazine and in a special 20-page section that begins on page 32.
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The “Ever Given” logjam highlights tyre price increases pressures
As the April edition of Tyres & Accessories went to press, the story of the Ever Given – the 400-metre long container ship that got wedged in the Suez canal – was getting a surprising amount of news coverage. The spectacle of a ship the length of four football pitches was enough to capture the attention of many. For others, the anecdotes of tenacious tug pilots and plucky digger drivers trying to free the gargantuan vessel from its unscheduled moorings did the trick. But for those in the tyre trade – and hundreds of other lines of work connected with global logistics – there were solid business reasons for their interest. “How many boxes have you got on the Ever Given?”, one tyre wholesaler asked. “It’s times like this…”, the other comically replied leaving the rest of his reply to the imagination.
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We need to torque about speed ratings: power, speed and electric vehicle tyre fitments
Pirelli’s “power is nothing without control” strapline is well-known and apt. But, as we move further into the era of electric vehicles, should we be thinking: speed-ratings mean nothing without considering torque? In July 2003 my predecessor Peter Gardner published “Let’s torque speed ratings”, an editorial article that followed suggestions from within the tyre business that we reconsider what we mean by those letter values so-often tagged onto the end of tyre sizes. The discussion was specifically prompted by Stephen Marsh (then of Stapleton’s Tyre Services) who made the point that the power transference properites of millennial engines is as important as the absolute speed capability of tyres. In other words, when recommending products, the tyre business should be just as concerned about a vehicle’s torque demands as its top-speed capability.
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The top tyre stories of 2020
Even for the best forward-planners, 2020 was a year of surprises. And while the word “unprecedented” has been worn out during the last 12 months, it is difficult to find another more appropriate term. With everything from business closures, to a global pandemic (and with the pandemic resulting in lockdowns, factory closures and spikes in online and mobile tyre business), there certainly has been a lot going on. That’s why in January we crunched the numbers relating to our website traffic in order to find our what exactly were the top 10 stories of 2020.
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Brexit, Covid and shipping cost increases point to tyre price hikes in 2021
After months of mounting pressure on UK ports, the automotive industry is bearing visible signs of strain. Specifically, Honda UK halted production at its Swindon factory in December 2020 because it couldn’t get the right parts in time to continue production. But the ramifications don’t end there. General UK tyre supply is likely to be impacted too. And the result of the Brexit and Covid market pressures as well as shipping cost increases are likely to result in tyre industry price hikes during 2021.
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An unprecedented year for the tyre business
On 23 November, Oxford Dictionaries declared that “unprecedented” is the word of year. Normally the world famous English language experts choose just one word to sum up the preceding 12 months, but such was the cumulative uniqueness of the series of events that has characterised 2020, this year they chose several “words of an unprecedented year” – a move that is itself unprecedented. So why not use their zeitgeist-capturing collection of novel verbiage as a way of reviewing 2020 from a tyre business perspective?
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How to view the Tyre Industry Conference
Our virtual Tyre Industry Conference, in association with the National Tyre Distributors Association and supported by CAM, is available now. Click here to go to our conference page. The conference comprises four videos on Tyre Market Data, Tyre Standards, end of Life Tyres, and Tyre Recycling. If you would like to comment on any of the contents, use our social media pages and the hashtag #TIC2020, or email theeditor@tyrepress.com.
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2020 vision impossible in an unpredictable year
It is somewhat ironic that the number 2020 has inherent associations with perfect vision and yet this year has turned out to be the most unpredictable in a lifetime. For example, no-one saw President Trump’s twitter-borne sideswipe at Goodyear’s tyres coming last month – how could they? However, on a more serious note, the effects of uncertainty has real-life impact. And this month has seen more than its fair share of such harsh realities in the tyre industry. This article appears in full in the October edition of Tyres & Accessories magazine. Not yet a subscriber? You can change that here.
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