Titan International has completed the sale of its tyre manufacturing plant in Brownsville, Texas facility to an affiliate of commercial real estate firm Phoenix Investors. The one million square feet plant was built in 1997 on 108 acres, and Titan ended tyre production in 2003. It has since leased the site to multiple tenants.
Five months on from its groundbreaking ceremony, the first pictures from Shandong Jinyu Tire’s new Vietnam truck and bus radial tyre factory show the progress made so far. At its May 2020 event, Jinyu said the new tyre manufacturing plant would have an annual capacity of 2 million tyres in its first stage, supplying mainly European and North American markets. At its completion, due March 2024, Jinyu would have an annual capacity of 7 million TBR tyres, with a global sales footprint.
Waste rubber generated by tyre manufacturing could deliver increased energy savings and business opportunities according to IRR Waste 2 Energy. The company’s continuous pyrolysis technology, which is fully commissioned and in operation at its parent company Carlton Forest Group’s Worksop headquarters, has delivered “tangible results” in both “energy generation and the production of by-products such as pyrolysis oil and carbon char,” the company states. These materials can be refined further to produce high grade engine oil and recovered carbon black (RcB).
Cooper has begun the process of restarting its tyre manufacturing plant in El Salto, Mexico. The manufacturer said it is restarting production on a limited basis today. It states that it has “put in place a comprehensive set of procedures that include required employee health disclosures, increased cleaning and disinfecting of facilities and equipment, social distancing and physical barriers, visitor restrictions, and other measures.” These measures are aligned with the company’s “first priority of employee health and safety,” it added.
Goodyear has purchased new VI-grade driving simulators, including a dynamic model, to enhance its product development. The tyre manufacturer has selected a Compact Simulator recently delivered to the company’s innovation centre in Luxembourg and a Dynamic Driving Simulator DiM250 (Driver-in-Motion) to be installed in Akron, Ohio, in the coming months.
Michelin is installing a new Ansible Motion Driver-in-the-Loop (DIL) simulator at its North America Research & Development centre in Greenville, South Carolina, USA. The Theta C simulator offers virtual test driving and evaluation of tyre-road-vehicle interactions in advance and in parallel with physical testing, with detailed simulation environments. Michelin is the first company to take delivery of the Theta C simulator since the product was formally launched.
The latest global tyre market share figures from tyre industry analyst Astutus Research show how long-established, leading players headquartered in Japan, Europe, and North America have seen their volume share diminish, while Chinese, ASEAN, and selected other markets’ tyre manufacturers’ share has risen. The analyst states that in aggregate, the ten leading PCLT tyre manufacturers based in Japan, Europe and North America (J-E-NA) have lost almost 6 percentage points of market share since the end of 2011 (OE and replacement segments combined, volumes in tyre units). In part this reflects a strategic choice of some to focus on the higher value premium segments of the market.
A new product that specialty chemicals company Lanxess will soon trial with customers promises sufficient time for full cross-linking, even at high temperatures. The VP Vulkacit TZ vulcanisation accelerator is a sulfenamide based on aromatic amines and is suitable for all types of rubber. Lanxess foresees its use in the production of tyres and technical rubber goods.
For the 4th time, vehicle engineers and tyre experts from around the world visited Aachen, Germany between 11 and 13 September to exchange experiences of the FTire model and discuss varying applications and future demands for the tyre model together with its creator, Professor Gipser.
A collaboration between Continental’s Tire division and Kordsa, the Sabanci Group’s textile reinforcing materials business, is expected to result in a new, sustainable system of bonding textile reinforcing materials to rubber-based compounds. Specifically, the two companies are working on a technology that replaces resorcinol and formaldehyde with more environmentally friendly chemicals. Continental reports that to-date the joint work has delivered “very promising” results, adding that the technology will be available to others under a free licensing concept.
The opening of Apollo Tyres’ Gyöngyöshalász plant, 100km east of Budapest, marks a significant event for both the company’s global aspirations and the Indian tyre industry – the 72 hectare greenfield factory, begun in April 2015, is the first inaugurated by an Indian tyre company to come online outside the domestic market. The importance was reflected in the event itself, with some of the plant’s cavernous warehousing housing around 1,300 guests, among whose number was the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, who declared Apollo’s sixth global tyre manufacturing plant – its second in Europe after the existing Netherlands facility acquired alongside Vredestein – open on 7 April.
The latest CRIA data, which was released by Chinese tyre industry association CRIA on 12 April, shows that Zhongce Rubber Group (also known as ZC Rubber) remains the number tyre manufacturer in China in terms of income, with 2016 sales of 18.38 billion yuan (RMB). Giti Tire’s Chinese operation (Giti Tire [China] Investment Co., Ltd.) trails by more than 6 billion yuan, but is a clear second place with 13.14 billion yuan in 2016 ahead of Sailun Jinyu Group, which reported income of 11.19 billion yuan last year.
Smithers Rapra has enchanced its tread wear testing capabilities for passenger, light truck and commercial vehicle tyres at its test centre in Ravenna, Ohio, USA. According to the company, the upgraded equipment and software can run a wide variety of drive profiles while supporting benchmarking and development requirements.
Kobe Steel, Ltd. has launched a new tyre testing machine, a tyre uniformity machine called the Librota-GS. According to the company, the new model has the world’s fastest cycle time of 18 seconds per tyre and the world’s highest repeated measurement accuracy.
Kobe Steel is regarded as a top manufacturer in the field of uniformity machines, with an estimated 30 per cent global market share. Kobe Steel plans to supply the new model to tyre makers in North America, Europe and regions throughout the world, aiming to capture further share of the market.
Jinyu
Shaun Flannery/shaunflanneryphotography.com