Today’s announcement that Yokohama and Nippon Zeon have successfully made isoprene monomer from micro-organisms set me thinking about bio-tech in the rubber industry. I first reported on the use of micro-organisms to make isoprene back in 2008 when Goodyear announced its cooperation with Genencor. Genencor subsequently became part of DuPont. Since then, Goodyear has gone
This week, I want to alert you to something from under the radar: there are big changes going on in the retread sector around the world. It’s hard to get numbers on this, but I’m increasingly getting involved in conversations about the impact of imports of low-priced truck tires from China on the global retread
Downward. Natural rubber (NR) is in mid- to long-term structural over-capacity right now, and the situation is made worse by the short- to mid-term turmoil in China’s tire industry. I’m not saying anything new here. The trade has been awash with speculation about how far down the price of rubber can go for the last
A perfect storm of negative conditions is driving huge changes in China’s tire industry, causing a meltdown in profitability and output among Chinese tire makers. Desperate Chinese tire makers are driving sharp price falls in almost every tire market and simultaneously forcing down prices of raw materials, notably natural and synthetic rubber. In dollar terms,
As many of you know, I’ve been talking to many people in the global tire industry but last week at the excellent Latin American Tire show in Panama, organized by Gustavo Lima and his team, I had a bit of a revelation. I’d like to share it with you. We all know there are hundreds
In the previous article, I addressed how the international tire makers’ profitability in China might be threatened by greater availability of consumer data on tires. This article looks at the situation of China’s tire makers and how that might change in the coming decade or so. Falling prices China’s tire industry is probably the most
I’ve spent a lot of time talking to people in China these last couple of months, and the mood is not happy. First, they are dealing with a downturn in the domestic truck market; second there is the issue of widespread tariffs against Chinese-made tires and third the question of land prices. The prospect of
Sumitomo has officially announced the end of its tire manufacturing and sales joint venture with Goodyear which was originally signed in 1999. Goodyear confirmed the deal, but the details are more or less as leaked to Reuters earlier this week, with the exception of the ownership of the Dunlop brand name. Dunlop brand rights According
I’ve recently been talking to a lot of people about what matters to tire engineers. There’s the day-to-day tasks of designing tires. That involves some interesting materials science on rolling resistance, wear and grip. I know that these factors play a huge part in the tire development activity at the moment. A lot of companies
In April, the world’s tire modelling community met in Guildford, UK*. As the first such meeting for around 11 years, it was long over-due. And in fact everyone who knows about computer modelling of tires was there. That includes the university professors and researchers who think up models for how friction is generated, or why rubber
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