HANGZHOU CITY, China — Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. (YRC) is planning to relocate and expand a passenger tire plant in Hangzhou it's operated since 2003 to a greenfield site in the same city due to urban sprawl in Hangzhou, a city of over 12 million residents.
Yokohama is budgeting $269 million to build the new plant, which will be located in the Qiantang new district of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province.
The facility is expected to start production in the second quarter of 2025 with an initial annual capacity of 9 million tires, with further expansion to be considered in the future, YRC said. The 21-year-old plant being replaced has a rated capacity of 5 million tires a year.
The decision to construct the new plant is in response to a government request to relocate the existing factory in Hangzhou as part of an urban renewal project.
As part of the move, YRC has created a new subsidiary, Hangzhou Qiantang Yokohama Tire, to operate the new facility. Tomoyuki Okuno, formerly president of Hangzhou Yokohama Tire, will lead the new subsidiary.
The new unit will be the first plant to be built under YRC's "one-year plant" challenge detailed in its Yokohama Transformation 2026 (YX2026) strategy. Under the challenge, YRC aims to construct "low-cost and highly efficient" plants in one year in order to gain "a strong competitive position in the local market."
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.
Hangzhou is one of two tire factories YRC operates in China. The other is a plant in Suzhou with a rated annual capacity of 6.4 million passenger and truck/bus tires.
