It’s a little over a year since Maxion Wheels and ZF Openmatics announced they’d teamed up to develop the Smart Wheel, and Maxion now reports that road testing of this connectivity solution will commence in 2020. During the Ioche-Maxion Investor Day 2020, held online yesterday, Maxion Wheels’ chief executive officer confirmed that Smart Wheel prototypes would be on the road before the end of the year.
As of 5 February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that there have been 24,554 confirmed cases of coronavirus across 25 countries since the outbreak began on 23 January 2020. Governments all round the world are taking steps to contain the spread of the virus as well as to develop treatment, but China is bearing the brunt of it with 24,363 cases within its borders alone. As a result, the transport systems of at least 10 cities in the People’s Republic have been shut down and public gatherings are being discouraged. As a result, home-working rates have shot through the roof and there has been an inevitable impact on the manufacturing industry. Considering China is the world’s largest manufacturer of tyres by unit volume, what impact is the coronavirus having on the tyre industry?
Drag is, for want of a better word, a drag. It literally gets in your way wherever you go. Design teams must combat this restrictive force whenever developing a new vehicle, and Maxion Wheels has come to their aid with a new concept. It calls this the Aerowheel.
The USA has determined the rate of anti-dumping and countervailing duties it will charge on steel commercial vehicle wheels imported from China, and the levels set are high. This month, the US Department of Commerce announced final anti-dumping duties of 231.7 per cent and countervailing duties of 457.1 per cent.
Maxion Wheels, the world’s largest wheel manufacturer, has entered into an agreement to form a new passenger car aluminium wheel joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Parts and Components Group, one of China’s largest automotive parts companies. The new legal entity, Dongfeng Maxion Wheels, will build a new two-million per year capacity plant in Hubei Province, China. Series production is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2020.
India’s Tata Motors has become the latest car maker to select Maxion Wheels’ VersaStyle steel wheel as an original equipment rim. Maxion Wheels will deliver 150,000 VersaStyle wheels a year for fitment on the Tata Tiago, a city car sold in the Indian market. Supply to Tata comes on top of the approximately three million VersaStyle wheels that Maxion Wheels produces annually for other customers.
Maxion Wheels has announced its participation in the 67th IAA Commercial Vehicles exhibition in Hannover, Germany. From 20 to 27 September 2018, Maxion Wheels will display both its application-diverse truck wheel product portfolio, as well as present several of its latest innovation wheels designed to tackle the industry’s challenges of fuel efficiency, connectivity and new mobility in Hall 26/ Stand A42.
Maxion Wheels, the world’s largest wheel producer, has announced its participation in next month’s Reifen show. The company can be found in Hall 12.1, at Stand D24 during the exhibition, which will be held alongside Automechanika Frankfurt between 11 and 15 September.
Aesthetics are decisive when choosing a new car, and large diameter rims and low-profile tyres now even feature on the options list for lower performance models. But while kitting a car out with this combination bumps up its sporting credentials a notch or two, your pride and joy no longer looks the part when standing immobile at the side of the road, tyre destroyed and rim ruined after an encounter with a pothole.
Last September, Michelin and Maxion Wheels jointly presented a flexible wheel solution that features the tyre maker’s Acorus Technology. This solution has been adopted by French driverless vehicle specialist Navya for its autonomous electric shuttle bus, which is already on the roads in five cities around the world. The electric city shuttle is now making its debut in London.
Michelin believes it has helped reinvent the wheel. At the IAA motor show in Frankfurt, Germany, the tyre maker is presenting a new solution together with Maxion Wheels, a product the two companies believe will help eliminate road-based damage to tyres and rims.
Wheelmaker to make joint product announcement with Michelin on 13 September 2017.
ThyssenKrupp Carbon Components and Maxion Wheels have established a cooperation agreement to develop and market ultra-lightweight aluminium and carbon fibre hybrid wheels for the premium vehicle OEM market. The two companies state that the products resulting from their collaboration will “will offer customers exceptional performance benefits at an attractive price point.”
Marcos Oliveira, president and CEO of Iochpe Maxion, has announced the promotion of Pieter Klinkers (44) to the role of CEO of Maxion Wheels, effective 1 March 2015. Klinkers, from the Netherlands, succeeds Fred Bentley in this role at the world’s largest manufacturer of aluminium rims for passenger cars and steel rims for cars and commercial vehicles. While Bentley led the company from the USA (Northville, Michigan), in future Klinkers will execute his duties as CEO from Königswinter, near the former West German capital of Bonn, where he is currently based.
Maxion Wheels reports that it will supply Renault with more than a million VersaStyle wheels for the vehicle maker’s Megane, Megane Scenic, Clio and the Dacia Logan and Dacia Sandero Stepway models during the course of 2014. The company has already sold a million VersaStyle wheels in total this year, and more than 15 million units since VersaStyle wheels were first introduced in 2005.
