Tire Tech opens in three weeks time at its new venue in Hanover. Many of you know that I was closely involved in developing the conference programme for 2016. In this column I discuss some of the highlights of the conference, and how tire professionals can benefit. First, I want to thank the team at
Bridgestone’s European Driveguard was launched today in France. It was marketed as a ‘Game Changer’ within the tire business. At first glance, the product is just another runflat tire, launched 2 years behind its US namesake. But there is a story behind the development, which marks a change of game not necessarily for the tire
Many cultures regard this period as the end of one year and the beginning of the next. I’m using that as an excuse to adopt a slightly more frivolous approach to this column. With no more pre-amble, let me look back at 2015 and make some predictions for 2016. The themes of 2015 were pretty
I was lucky enough to be interviewed by Prasanth Warrier of Rubber Machinery World last week in his Know a Rubber Leader series. The interview is in full on his website, but I thought I’d re-print two of the ten questions he asked me here, as a bit of a teaser for his full article.
After three or four years of struggling with image problems, Pirelli has found a way to produce a calendar which celebrates women without objectifying them. Three years ago I wrote a blog congratulating Pirelli on its decision to reduce the number of naked images in its 2013 calendar. At the time I wrote, “It is
Here in Guatemala, the fantastic Rubber days meeting has just finished. Measured by volumes, Guatemala is barely even on the map of Natural Rubber (NR) producing nations. But measured by creativity and energy it is up there among the leaders. Guatemala has the first (and I think only) FSC-accredited rubber plantation anywhere in the world.
China’s tire industry is in melt-down. The question now is, how long can the current situation last? I’ve just come back from Shandong Province and the mood is not good. When things are not going well, Chinese people will rarely tell you the real situation. When they tell you things are bad, you know the
Disruption. Change. Revolution. Usually when we talk about the tire industry, we talk about incremental change. Tires are safety critical and big changes introduce too much risk. Vehicle makers, tire retailers and the vehicle operators like tires to be reliable, safe and secure. Tire manufacture is both capital-intensive and labour-intensive. This means tire makers need
The following letter was written by Jan Prins, who is in charge of Tyre CAE & Modelling at Jaguar Land Rover. He has agreed to let me share it with you. Would you be interested in joining a fairly informal (private / co-opted) ‘network’ for discussions on tyre testing and tyre modelling? Those of you
Last week I spent a lot of time with the VDI at their meeting in Hanover. For those who don’t know, the VDI – The German Association of Engineers – is a highly prestigious organisation which links many industries. For our industry, it was one of the few forums in 2015 where tire engineers employed
A weekly newsletter of developments in the China tire industry including news reports and David Shaw’s expert commentary and analysis.
Monthly English & Chinese language newsletter bringing together global news stories covering retail, strategy, sustainability and legislative issues.