Vehicle Recall Ordered For Ford In California
A Californian judge has ordered Ford to recall up to two million vehicles in the state. The vehicles were fitted with an allegedly faulty ignition module which, it is said, can lead to vehicles stalling. Ford says it will appeal. A law firm has filed an action against Ford to recall nationwide all of the vehicles fitted with the module and to reimburse customers who have been injured or who have lost out economically. It is estimated that there are 23 million such vehicles in the USA.
Continue ReadingLaw Suit Has Little Chance of Success Say DaimlerChrysler
DaimlerChrysler have said that they regard the nine billion Dollar law suit by its third largest shareholder, the Tracinda Investment Group, as completely unfounded. The lawsuit alleges that DaimlerChrysler have deliberately deceived the US Stock Exchange Control Institution as well as the shareholders. Analysts predict that this law suit has little chance of success. Although Deutsche Bank, the main shareholder of DaimlerChrysler, have demonstratively supported the management, the car manufacturers share price went down significantly to 45.85 Euros.
Continue ReadingOut of Sight – Out of Mind
According to results from Tyrecheck 2000, carried out by Police forces throughout the UK, as many as one in ten cars on UK roads may be running on illegal tyres, 27% are, at best, close to the end of their safe and legal life. That’s in excess of 13million illegal tyres in use every day. Imagine then the figures for faulty shock absorbers hidden out of sight? Recent research carried out in the UK suggested that over 6 million out of 25 million (24%) cars on the road were running on at least one faulty shock absorber. Belgian research confirmed that this is not purely an UK problem when figures produced there showed 20-25% of motorists driving with faulty dampers. If the car driver is unaware of a problem, how can the industry realise the potential sales in the shock absorber aftermarket? The market is estimated by Datamonitor to be worth in excess of 124M Euro at Retail Selling Price (RSP) in the UK alone, and across Europe has a value of some 471M Euro at Manufacturer Selling Prices (MSP). How does the fast fit salesman persuade the customer that he needs a new shock absorber? Moreover, how does he persuade him that he needs to change a pair? More about this can be found in the December issue of TYRES & ACCESSORIES.
Continue ReadingTruck Tyre Service by Vergölst
Vergölst’s truck tyre service had a very successful run in 1999. More than 14,000 trucks and coaches/buses were fixed on motorways and highways by Vergölst’s puncture service in 1998 – equivalent to 38 calls-out per day –, a figure far exceeded in 1999. This Vergölst round-the-clock truck tyre puncture service has been available seven days a week (including holidays) since 1987. So far the breakdown service has operated from the various service centres, but for the last two years or so the company has increasingly used servicemobiles which work independently and are responsible only for trucks, thereby providing even faster help in each individual breakdown. The servicemobiles not only help with truck tyre punctures on the road. They service customers’ vehicles wherever they are – tractor units or trailers – either at the customer’s own premises, in a motorway service area, or while loading, unloading or being repaired at a truck workshop. The mobile truck tyre service is continually being enlarged above the current 50 servicemobiles. The target is mobile service coverage at traffic junctions and at centres of commerce. In sea ports such as Bremen/Bremerhaven, Cuxhaven, Hamburg, Kiel, Lübeck-Travemünde, Rostock (being developed) and Sassnitz/Stralsund the mobile port service has been in operation for several years, making the tyres of trailers safe before they start out on their journey along German roads.
Continue ReadingContinental To Strengthen Its Presence In Mexico
Since its acquisition of what was Euzkadi in 1998, Continental General Tire is the leading tyre manufacturer in Mexico. Recently, ContiTech began construction on a factory in San Luis Potosi to make technical products for the Nafta region and Continental Teves intends to build a factory at Silao in Mexico to manufacture wheel revolution sensors.
Continue ReadingStart Of Tyre Production At Bridgestone Poland
Bridgestone has launched the production of passenger car and light truck tyres in Poland. Right now the factory has a capacity of about two million tyres for passenger cars but in 2001 Bridgestone plans to manufacture three million high performance tyres.
Continue ReadingBBS Re-purchase Italian Factory
BBS has bought back the 50 per cent share in a light alloy wheel factory in Ruina (Ferrara), from it former partner in the joint venture, Riva Calzoni.
Continue ReadingDegussa-Hüls Invests Euro 80 Million
To boost market position Degussa-Hüls wants to invest Euro 80 million to expand the production of precipitated silicas at its factory in Wesseling/Germany. Silicas, along with rubber silanes and rubber carbon black, are important components in reducing the rolling resistance of tyres.
Continue ReadingScrap Tyre Open Forum
Around forty people from all sectors of the tyre industry, the waste collection industry and the trade press met in an open forum meeting to discuss the different aspects of the scrap tyre situation and to examine market trends. Among the topics on the agenda were retreading, recycling and re-use. Retreading in the UK (especially car tyre retreading) is going through what is probably its worst-ever period for sales. The situation at the forum was described as an environmental disaster by one delegate. Recycling suffers from a lack of investment; backers are scared off by the instability of prices in the scrap tyre collection market, at least at local level. Re-use brought up the subject of part-worn tyres, the UK market for which is estimated at around three million units. The futures for landfill engineering and energy recovery were also discussed at length. It was not only the various disposal methods that were under discussion – there were complaints about whether the playing field was as level as it should be and the Environment Agency was criticised by some for the length of time it took to evaluate test results. Possible future statutory control measures were discussed, particularly the fear that these might be imposed on the industry as a whole, or on one sector. Unless the industry can come up with an effective voluntary scheme, this was regarded as inevitable. More about this in TYRES & ACCESSORIES’s March issue.
Continue ReadingPhoenix Ambitious
Former tyre producer Phoenix (Germany) wants to double sales by 2005 (1999: EURO 859.7 million). Core businesses (now accounting for 86% of turnover) are car vibrations and acoustics, conveyors and hose systems.
Continue ReadingContinental Denies Shareholding in Apollo Tyres
Continental has denied reports in Indian newspapers that it has a 15% shareholding in Apollo Tyres. Continental is in talks with other companies in India but the results will not be announced until later this year.
Continue ReadingGood News At Last For UK Car Industry
After the recent run of bad news in the UK car industry, there was good news when Vauxhall announced it was to invest £189 m in its British manufacturing operation, creating an estimated 500 jobs.
Continue ReadingContinental Wants To Buy Back Shares
The German newspaper Handelsblatt says in todays issue that Continental is planning to buy back its own shares. This will be confirmed at the general meeting taking place on May 19th. The Supervisory Board proposes the usual limit of 10 p.c. of the original capital and a time limit up until the end of October 2001. With this move Continental wants to keep the option open to make acquisitions by exchanging shares.
Continue ReadingMichelin’s F1 Tyre Development Continues
Tom Kristensen, in a BMW-engined Williams FW21B, tested the latest version of Michelin F1 tyres in Miramas. The Dane was very impressed with the standard of the Michelin program and the technical progress the engineers achieved between the two 4-day sessions.
Continue ReadingGlobal Players – An In-Depth Analysis
More and more nowadays, we hear that the tyre industry is becoming increasingly global and ever-more companies describe themselves as a global player. But what exactly makes a company a true global player? An in-depth article in TYRES & ACCESSORIES 6/2000 looks at the criteria by which a so-called ‘global player’ should be judged and concludes that the only three companies that merit this term are Bridgestone, Goodyear and Michelin. The article examines in detail each company’s performance in the world’s most important markets, their market shares and turnover figures, their strengths and weaknesses and their prospects for the future. The article goes on to examine the home markets of the global players (USA, Europe and Asia) and discusses the performances of the lesser players and what is likely to happen to them. Todays global tyre market is one of acquisitions and alliances, mergers and new technological advances. Competition is intense and, in terms of market share, none of the big three seems able to leave its rivals standing, neither is the gap between the big three and the second three growing. Having said that, none of the second three stands a realistic chance of becoming a true global player in the future. The article gives a detailed, objective assessment of today’s tyre industry, together with some speculation concerning what might happen in the future.
Continue Reading