Capacities at Apollo Tyres Ltd.’s production facilities in Europe were 88 per cent utilised between March and June 2022. The utilisation figure for the tyre maker’s plants in India was around 85 per cent, reports chief financial officer Gaurav Kumar. This gives the company little leeway for further growth in volumes, but Apollo Tyres believes it can address this issue without resorting to a greenfield or brownfield capacity expansion project.
The Doublestar Group reports that it has signed a cooperation agreement with information and communications company Huawei. According to information posted by Doublestar, the partners will utilise their respective strengths to develop the infrastructure for a 5G network over which tyre pressure, temperature and wear data can be transmitted and shared between vehicles and companies in real-time.
Three Japanese firms are jointly conducting pilot testing that involves joining data gained from an internet-capable tyre with a road surface sensing system to map data. The trio – tyre maker The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd.; map and navigation technology specialist Zenrin Co., Ltd.; and technology company Alps Alpine Co., Ltd. – have now also begun studying ways to monetise this technology.
In the US The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and ConMet announced a strategic collaboration to create combined digital solutions that will “better connect commercial truck fleets to the health of their tyres and wheel ends”. Billed as leveraging big data and utilising predict analytics, ConMet’s existing SmartHub is positioned as a stepping stone en route to autonomous vehicle technology.
On July 10, Linglong Tire signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tencent Cloud and Huazhi. As a result, the three parties will cooperate on smart marketing and industrial digitalization based on “the world’s first industrial Internet platform for the tyre industry, aiming at helping Linglong realize the transformation from traditional manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing, while seizing the aftermarket and improving the overall digital marketing and service level.”
In addition to the recently-announced application of artificial intelligence and digital sensor technology to automate the inspection of newly-manufactured tyres, Hankook Tire aims to improve the production flow in its factories via a new monitoring system that utilises artificial intelligence and IoT technology. It calls this Hankook Condition Monitoring System Plus, or CMS+ for short.
On 21 December, Linglong Tire signed a tripartite strategic agreement with Tencent Cloud and Shenzhen Huazhi Technology Group. The tyre maker hopes that this deal, signed by the three parties at Tencent’s global headquarters, will help it build a “global industrial service platform and intelligent retail platform.”
Nexen Tire has formed a strategic partnership with Plug and Play, the world’s largest corporate innovation platform and startup accelerator. Plug and Play was an early investor in Silicon Valley’s most renowned firms including PayPal, Lending Club, Dropbox and SoundHound. In doing so Nexen has highlighted its view of the importance of start-up thinking, future mobility, open-R&D and the Internet of Things (IoT) – all trends that the wider tyre industry is predicted to become increasingly involved in over time.
Mobility as a service concepts are expected to entice many motorists from car ownership to vehicle sharing, and Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI) is preparing for this future with a new partnership with Japanese automotive Internet of things (IoT) service company TripodWorks and Taiwan-based TPMS manufacturer Sysgration.
ConMet
Linglong