HANGZHOU, China — Yokohama Rubber (China) Co. Ltd. has broken ground on a $483 million "smart" tire project in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, that's intended to replace an older factory in the same district as part of an urban renewal project spearheaded by local government.
To be completed in two phases, the project will result in a factory with a rated annual capacity of 14 million passenger tires — 9 million units in the initial stage followed by an additional 5 million units in the second phase, Yokohama stated in an environmental report for the project published in early November.
The factory is being built in the Qiantang district of Hangzhou, in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. City officials, as well as Yokohama director Masataka Yamaishi, attended the Dec. 16 event, according to information posted on the Hangzhou city's official government website.
The new factory will take the place of a plant that Yokohama has operated since 2003 in Hangzhou, a city of over 12 million residents. That plant has a rated capacity of 6 million tires a year.
Hangzhou is one of two tire factories Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. operates in China. The other is a plant in Suzhou with a rated annual capacity of 6.4 million passenger and truck/bus tires.
The facility will include a rubber-mixing workshop and a semi-steel radial tire production plant equipped with internal mixers, testing equipment and intelligent hydraulic vulcanizers, Yokohama said, along with "fully automatic mouding machines." open mixing mills and other production and auxiliary equipment.
"This project aims to create 'digital economy, green manufacturing' and takes energy conservation, emission reduction, process reengineering, and intelligent manufacturing as its core," Yokohama said..
The Japanese group disclosed its plans for the facility in July, albeit with a measurably smaller investment budget of $269 million.
The new unit will be the first plant to be built under the YRC "one-year plant" challenge detailed in its Yokohama Transformation 2026 (YX2026) strategy.
Building a new and larger factory will allow YRC to to increase sales of higher-value-added larger-rim-diameter tires for the Chinese replacement market, particularly the Advan flagship brand and the Geolandar brand for SUVs and pickup trucks, as well as produce OE tires for "new energy" vehicles, including electric vehicles.
