News from the world’s largest tyre industry show, Reifen 2012, at Messe Essen, Germany
The latest AA passenger car tyre has arrived, with eight sizes of Goodyear’s EfficientGrip Performance meeting the wet grip and rolling resistance criteria. The brand is now providing one of the largest number of tyre sizes sporting AA EU tyre label grades on the market. The new sizes complement an already extensive BA rated offering from Goodyear on the market today, with 53 EfficientGrip Performance sizes rated BA.
A consumer website aimed at improving awareness of energy saving products has begun listing tyre models with AA EU labels. Comprising Pirelli’s Cinturato P7 Blue in three XL sizes – the first AA tyre on the market, launched at Reifen 2012 – and Bridgestone’s October-launched AA-rated Ecopia EP001S, www.toptensverige.se (Topten Sweden) has begun to list tyres among what it believes to be benchmark products. The Topten online service, present in 17 countries in Europe as well as in China and the United States, aims to make transparent and independent assessments of goods and services, and has included the four tyre sizes as its first foray into the product area.
Eldan Recycling A/S, Faaborg has sold a complete cable granulation and separation plant to Viakon Conductores Monterrey, Mexico. The system will turn mixed cables and wire into pure copper and plastic at approx. 1000 kg per production hour.
The sixth edition of Reifen China will open next week, taking place at the Shanghai New International Exhibition Center on 14-16 November. The trade fair for the Asian tyre market is run by Messe Essen and the China United Rubber Corporation, and the organisers predict that 2012 will see further growth on previous years. On an area of 12,000sqm, around 130 exhibitors from 14 countries will present their ranges of tyre, wheel and garage products, with more than 10,000 trade visitors expected to attend. Sponsoring the event is Germany’s Federal Association of the Tyre and Vulcaniser Trades (Bundesverband Reifenhandel und Vulkaniseur-Handwerk, or BRV).
Ladybank Tyres in Fife, Scotland has become the latest garage to sign-up to the revised GT Radial Performance Centre (GTPC) programme. The company’s Target Tyres subsidiaries in Blairgowrie, Glenrothes and Perth have also become GTPCs in a deal secured by the brand’s exclusive UK distributor, Micheldever. All four sites have been placed on the revamped Passport to Profit programme, which allows them to access tailor-made marketing initiatives, training, merchandising and ride and drive events designed by GT Radial to increase footfall and profits.
To ignore the old adage about books and covers, the latest manual to support the Micheldever Tyre Services exclusive brand, GT Radial says something about the support the brand is now receiving. When Tyrepress.com spoke with general manager at GiTi Tire UK, Brian McDermott and Marketing manager & European brand manager, Jenny Leeson about the new GT Radial Performance Centre initiative – supported by Micheldever – the first thing to be noted was the dynamic presentation materials, led by the latest version of the brand’s marketing manual. Where before, the relatively young brand was represented by a modest A5 booklet, the latest edition, ring-bound to allow for anticipated new products and announcements is “streamlined for personal selling”, says Leeson.
GiTi Tire (Europe) reports that it is aiming to increase market share in Portugal with a new distribution structure for the GT Radial brand. From this month Tiresur, which already controls the brand’s Spanish distribution, will be responsible for the passenger car, 4×4 and light truck tyres, while SEA will continue to control the commercial vehicle segment including medium and heavy truck and bus tyres.
The flagship European brand of GiTi Tire, GT Radial may have been selling truck tyres into European markets for less than half a decade, but it has come a very long way in a short space of time. In one of its major markets, the UK, the company believes it now holds third place in terms of market share, saying that it now outstrips big players Hankook and Continental with upwards of 13 per cent of the country’s one million truck tyre unit sales. It believes it holds the global number four spot in the TBR segment. The latest step forwards – unveiled first at the CV Show in Birmingham and then to a wider European audience at Reifen 2012 in Essen, Germany – has been the introduction of the company’s REE Tread development, a hot cure retreading programme, with the GTR990 regional trailer pattern in size 385/65R22.5 representing GT Radial’s first commercial vehicle retread tyre. Significantly, the tyre uses the Chinese brand’s own made-in-China casings and is manufactured by “a renowned retreader located in the south-west of England”, in the company’s words.
Testing of Pirelli’s Cyber Fleet system began earlier this year in South America, and in the second half of July an evaluation programme also began in Europe. So far, Pirelli’s European tests, conducted mainly in Germany using 15 heavy goods vehicles, have monitored the Cyber Fleet system over more than a million kilometres. Tests will continue until February 2013, and results so far confirm the results obtained in Latin America. Cyber Fleet will go on sale by the end of January 2013.
A particular focus for Van den Ban at this year’s Reifen show was to convey to visitors the company’s full range of services. To this end, representatives from the Netherlands-based wholesaler’s various national sales teams were on hand to meet with new and existing clients, and VDB showed off examples of its private labels, exclusive brands. Of course, the complete range of premium brands distributed by VDB was also there.
On the snow-dusted face of it, the UK winter tyre market seems to provide a couple of conundrums for those trying to predict and capitalise on demand for seasonal products. The first issue, and the most obvious in many tyre industry professionals’ minds, must be the Oceanic climate of the country, which, coupled with the warm air of the Gulf stream, provides us with only moderately cold winters. The second, a novelty for 2012 is the start of mandatory tyre labelling, which I will come to later.
With two new winter tyres for 2012, Pirelli is enthusiastically promoting the benefits of fitting specialist cold weather tyres in the UK. Joining the Italian manufacturer’s Sottozero Serie II high performance winter tyre are the recently introduced Winter SnowcontrolSerie 3, designed for smaller cars, and the Scorpion Winter SUV tyre, which was displayed at Reifen 2012, and replaces the Scorpion Ice.
Stamford Tyres brand, Firenza has an established presence in UK and European markets, with patterns across the PCR, UHP, light commercial and truck sectors. The brand expanded its purview in 2012 to include a recent range expansion into specialist cold weather products. Its growing portfolio now includes the winter tyre range, Nu Ice.
In a nod to a certain purveyor of fried chicken, Maxxis International has referred to its new tyre labelling software as ‘finger clicking good.’ Two pieces of specially created software, which the company previewed at the Reifen 2012 show, have been deployed to communicate the performance of Maxxis tyres in each of the three label criteria to retailers and distributors in a consumer friendly manner.
The latest edition is now available to read in e-paper format. As well as all our regular features, August's Tyres & Accessories includes additional coverage previewing the forthcoming TAFF Awards, OTR tyres and of course Tyre Labelling. As well as this there is our annual Brake feature and the conclusion of our Reifen Essen reoport to look forward to. Subscribers can simply click more to see the digitalized edition.