The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company announces that it is “teaming up” with Israel-based mobility incubator Drive TLV, with Drive facilitating collaboration opportunities between its network of start-ups and Goodyear. Drive will also connect the Goodyear Ventures capital fund with potential investment opportunities in this start-up network.
Using a range of sustainable materials in the tyre tread compound, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has developed the Eagle GO. This concept tyre is fitted to Citroën’s new concept car, oli. The Eagle GO is the third Goodyear concept tyre developed with Citroën.
During the second quarter of 2022, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company approved a plan related to the integration of Cooper Tire. This plan aims to streamline the company’s global administrative structure by reducing duplicated positions, and it will also result in the closure of “redundant” Cooper Tire warehouse locations in the Americas. According to Goodyear, the plan will result in “approximately 490 job reductions.”
Larger than ever following its acquisition of Cooper Tire in 2021, Goodyear Tire & Rubber reported year-on-year net sales growth of 31 per cent in Q2 2022. Sales amounted to US$5.2 billion in the three months to 30 June 2022, and Goodyear states that even excluding the Cooper transaction, this figure reflects year-on-year growth of over 15 per cent. Other factors driving this increase included improvements in price/mix, higher volume, and increased sales from other tyre-related businesses.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has published its report on corporate responsibility performance for 2021. It comments that the report, which summarises the progress made toward achieving the company’s short- and long-term sustainability goals, further demonstrates its commitment to ethical and sustainable processes, materials and programmes.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has officially opened its new manufacturing facility in Dudelange, Luxembourg, an operation it calls a “first of its kind” for the company. The inauguration on 5 May follows a US$77 million investment in industry 4.0 digital manufacturing processes at the site.
This week, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company achieved a further step towards its goal of fully replacing petroleum-derived oils by 2040. Selected products within the Goodyear Metro Miler range, a city transit tyre available to customers in North America, are now produced using a bio-based soybean oil compound that replaces a portion of the petroleum-based materials used.
The USA has classified natural rubber as a strategic raw material that serves as a critical ingredient in military, aircraft and truck tyres. The country currently relies on rubber imports for its tyre production but wishes to reduce this dependency, and government and military are thus working with private partners to accelerate commercialisation of natural rubber from dandelions. Goodyear Tire & Rubber will play a key role in achieving this goal.
At a ceremony held in Phoenix, Arizona this month, General Motors (GM) honoured 134 suppliers based in 16 countries. The vehicle manufacturer’s 2021 Supplier of the Year awardees included five tyre makers – Bridgestone Corporation, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Hankook Tire & Technology, Maxxis Tires and Michelin North America.
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has appointed Steve McClellan of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company to its Board of Directors. Goodyear says McClellan is joining the board to bolster US-based association’s “leadership in policy advocacy, workforce solutions, legal action, operational excellence and news and insights.”
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has announced a goal of reaching net-zero value chain greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, aligned with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and its new Net-Zero Standard. The company also announced its commitment to achieve near-term science-based targets by 2030, and in 2022 will submit both targets to SBTi for independent validation.
Goodyear tyre factories in France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Turkey will soon adopt 100 per cent renewable energy in the first step of a multiple-phase plan to solely procure renewable energy in all Goodyear facilities across Europe, Middle East and Africa by the end of 2022. The tyre maker will review other locations, such as Goodyear in South Africa and Cooper Tire plants in Serbia and UK, in a second phase.
Goodyear Ventures has made another mobility-related investment, becoming one of several parties to inject capital into US-based electric vehicle charging provider AmpUp. This funding, which also includes capital from Foothill Ventures and TechNexus Venture Collaborative, comes less than a year after AmpUp’s initial seed raise.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has entered into a strategic collaboration with Plus (formerly Plus.ai), a global provider of self-driving truck technology, to provide optimised, autonomous trucking solutions. Goodyear brings a range of services to this collaboration, including connected tyres, and the partners will explore how Plus’s autonomous driving system can incorporate feedback from these tyres into Plus’s online, machine learning-based fuel optimisation, to further improve fuel economy.
It is, says Goodyear Tire & Rubber, an industry first – a local transportation authority in the USA is field-testing the non-pneumatic tyre and wheel assembly the tyre maker developed for autonomous urban vehicles. The lessons learned will contribute towards the further development of maintenance-free tyres.
