SONOMA, Calif. — Michelin North America Inc. believes the commercial replacement tire market will settle after a double-digit drop in sales industrywide last year, and the company is looking ahead to how it and its partners will help shape the future of the segment.
Michelin hosted its Sustainability Summit on March 13 at Sonoma Raceway, where executives spoke about (among many topics) how the commercial tire market is evolving.
Michelin sees sustainability efforts as simply good for the evolution of the 135-year-old company. Finding efficiencies frees up capital to invest in innovations that create a better, more valuable product for the customer.
Luigi Cumo, vice president of B2B marketing at Michelin North America Inc., said sustainability efforts in the commercial tire market can have a "significant impact economically and environmentally."
Commercial fleets moved 72.5% of the nation's freight in 2022, according to the American Trucking Associations, and all that movement accounts for a lot of carbon dioxide emissions.
Michelin has myriad projects focused on this space from how it builds its tires to shipping them to tracking how they are used by trucking fleets. And of course, the tires are being designed to last longer and perform better — and be retreaded three and four times.
One of Michelin's partners in its sustainability quest is Daimler Truck North America which is on a mission of its own. Daimler's goal is to only produce carbon-neutral vehicles by 2039. This aligns well with Michelin, which aims to produce tires with 40% recycled and renewable materials by 2030. By 2050, the company aims to produce tires with 100% recycled and renewable materials while achieving net zero carbon emissions across its value chain.
Katie Rabideau, eMobility product manager at Daimler Truck North America, said the trucking industry is going through its biggest transformation.
She noted that the company's first iteration of the electric Freightliner eCascadia line, the Eclipse, was built five years ago and is now housed in a museum in Oregon.
"We're committed to having the right solutions for our customers to do the work, to move freight, to keep the world moving — in the short term as well as the long term," Rabideau said.
"That means developing sustainable solutions now to achieve our customers efficiency targets tomorrow."
During the Sustainability Summit, Michelin displayed Daimler's Freightliner SuperTruck II. The concept truck, released in 2023, is based on Daimler's Freightliner Cascadia model, the top seller among Class 8 trucks in the U.S.
The SuperTruck concept is a diesel intended to demonstrate fuel-saving technologies, and Michelin designed the tires.
"Each of those tires are optimized for the positions they have, and they bring significant impact in rolling resistance," Cumo said, adding the results were a 16% improvement over the baseline for the steer tires and 8% for the drive tire.
"The tag axle saw improved rolling resistance of 26%."
Cumo said the partnerships help to develop products. For example, the prototype steer tire for the SuperTruck was developed into Michelin's X Line Energy Z-Plus — "that's our lowest rolling resistance steer tire yet."
The aim at Michelin is to improve everything all at once, Cumo said.
"A lot of the products and the innovation that we bring is not necessarily at a trade-off. So, the X Line Energy Z-Plus brings improved rolling resistance, improved mileage, improved retreading — all at the same time.
"It's not that you're choosing one over the other, more and more, you should expect to see that from Michelin," Cumo said. "That's the right direction, we believe, to really make sure that everyone's making the transition towards better sustainability."
Last year, the commercial replacement tire sector was down significantly. In the U.S., shipments and imports of medium truck and bus tires fell by double digits (22.5% and 27.3%, respectively), according to data from the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association and Department of Commerce, and production in the U.S. dropped 8% as well.
Canadian shipments were down 25.5%, according to the Tire and Rubber Association of Canada.
"On the replacement side, I think we sort of found bottom the beginning of last year," Cumo said.
Replacement unit sales were down last year compared to the previous two years, which were historically high, but were an improvement over pre-pandemic (2019) numbers.
Last year, as demand settled, capacity increased, and fewer tires were purchased.
"Contrary to what we saw in 2023, which is dealers with a lot of tires from everyone, you are seeing a more controlled approach (in 2024)," he said.
"We are seeing an inflow of low-cost competitors driven by the expectations around antidumping tariffs. … That adds pressure, and that loads up inventories," Cumo said.
He added that the increase of low-cost tires may impact retread sales.
Overall on the commercial side, Michelin expects the numbers to continue to settle this year and return to steady growth — "a more normal" — next year.
"There is a lot more capacity in the market than there is demand," Cumo said. "That is going to take a while for the market to adjust to."
On a positive note, original equipment (OE) saw a bounce back from the manufacturing restraints during COVID.
"We grew in that (OE) space, and we are still trending very strongly," he said, adding that OE manufacturers, such as Daimler, indicate the positive trend will continue.
Michelin said airless tires are coming to the delivery sector in the future — though not in the near future.
Cyrille Roget, Michelin Group technical scientific communication director, said the technology is so new that much of the infrastructure must be developed.
He said airless tires, especially in high-puncture applications, have the potential to save upwards of 300 million tires a year.
Michelin has two contracts to test its UPTIS (Unique Puncture-proof Tire System) prototypes for last-mile delivery vehicles.
Fifty vehicles each for DHL (in Singapore) and La Poste (France's largest postal service) will be fitted with the UPTIS prototype. Michelin plans to the track data for two years.
The company has internally tested the UPTIS for more than 2 million miles, he said.
"Airless technology is completely new in terms of design, in terms of production … so we have to learn everything," Roget said.
Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Tire Business would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor Don Detore at [email protected].