CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — From tariffs to capital investments to executive shuffles, 2019 was packed with noteworthy news items that will have lasting impact on the industry in 2020 and beyond.
From among the hundreds of news stories that appeared in Tire Business throughout 2019, the Tire Business staff selected the following 10 as the year's most noteworthy:
1. Import duties on tires from China
For those involved in the commercial tire business — both new and retreaded — the imposition of import duties on truck and bus tires from China was the overriding issue of 2019.
D-Day for this sector was Feb. 15, when the U.S. Department of Commerce handed down final countervailing and antidumping duty orders on truck/bus tires from China, two weeks after the International Trade Commission (ITC) reversed its original determination on the issue.
The duties — ranging from 20.98% to 63.34% countervailing and 9% to 22.57% antidumping — were in response to a petition filed in January 2016 by the United Steelworkers union, which was seeking relief from what it claimed were grossly underpriced truck and bus tire imports from China.
The ITC issued a negative determination on that petition in February 2017, prompting the USW to file a complaint with the Court of International Trade (CIT), seeking judicial review of its original petition.
That review took nearly two years before the CIT ruled in the USW's favor in November 2018 and remanded the case to the ITC, which then reversed its decision from 2016 — voting 3-2 to find material injury against the domestic tire industry because of government-subsidized truck and bus tire imports from China sold in the U.S. at less than fair value — and announcing Jan. 30 its intention to levy duties.
At about the same time as the CIT's ruling in late 2018, the Trump administration went public with plans to impose elevated tariffs of at least 15% on a wide range of products — including tires, tubes, etc. — prompting importers of truck/bus tires from China to accelerate the shipment of tires from China to stockpile products in the U.S. that wouldn't be subject to the duties.
While the administration eventually postponed instituting those tariffs, the moves by the tire importers proved providential when the Department of Commerce handed down in February its decision to impose countervailing and antidumping duty orders on truck and bus tires from China, sources said.
Truck tire imports from China in 2018 soared 42.1% over 2017 — or roughly 2.5 million units — to 9.22 million units. This surplus inventory of these "tariff-beater" imports on hand helped the industry stave off, for several months at least, shortfalls in new imports.
By mid-2019, imports of truck/bus tires from China had slowed to the point that the full-year total was expected to fall over 60% to about 4 million units, the lowest total since 2010-11.
Despite the decline, China is expected to retain its status as the No. 1 source of imported truck/bus tires, although Thailand will be a close No. 2 and likely No. 1 in 2020, considering the number of new tire plants opened there in the past couple of years or are under construction.
In terms of filling the void with domestic production, there's been only one serious move by the manufacturing community to boost capacity in the U.S. — Continental A.G.'s $1.4 billion commitment for a truck/bus tire plant in Hinds County, Miss.
Production there isn't scheduled to begin until early 2020, however, and first-phase capacity of 750,000 units/year isn't expected until later.
At the same time, Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. was forced to scale back production expectations for its U.S. truck tire factory in West Point, Miss., due to a combination of facility- and personnel-related issues.
The company, which opened the $300 million plant in 2015 with a nameplate capacity of 1 million truck tires a year, rescaled the plant's production target by 2021 to 843,000 tires.
One segment of the industry that welcomed the increased import duties was the retreading community, which has complained for the past few years about the detrimental effect low-priced new imported tires has on retreading.
According to Retread Instead — the U.S. retreading advocacy group — the imposition of the new duties "will fundamentally change the supply side of new tires in the U.S. and over the next two years" and hasten a return to an improved ratio of retreads to new tires sold and put into service in the U.S.
Because of tariffs, the group said, there is more opportunity to grow than there has been in years.
"We are encouraging retreaders to 'get back to the basics' and promote total tire management programs to fleets by conducting fleet inspections, out-of-service tire analysis and recommending good solid tire management policies for fleets that includes managing total tire life to receive maximum benefits," the organization said early in the year.
With the tariffs in place, the retreading industry also hopes to see increased supplies of better quality truck tires that will be more repairable and retreadable, delivering lower total life-cycle cost and reducing the negative impact on the environment.
Early in the year, many industry observers were predicting tire shortages, price increases or both.
Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations was among the first to react, raising raise prices on all Dayton-brand truck and bus radial tires sold in the U.S. by 20%, effective March 5. This followed by six months a 10% increase on Dayton truck and bus tires sold in the U.S. and Canada.
Bridgestone said in February the price change was in response to increased business costs and other market dynamics. Bridgestone sources most of the Dayton-brand product from China.
Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp. — which sources many of its medium truck tires from a plant in China — raised prices on its commercial tire range twice in 2019, on May 1 by an average of 5% and on Jan. 1 by 2%. In both cases it exempted the Toyo M320 on-/off-road tire, which is produced in Japan.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. raised prices at the start of the second quarter on its Cooper- and Roadmaster-brand truck tires — which are sourced from China — by an undisclosed amount to compensate for the elevated import duties levied by the U.S. government on truck tires from China.
On the consumer side of the ledger, elevated import and antidumping duties imposed in 2015 — ranging up to 100% in some cases — are still in effect in addition to the more recent Trump administration tariffs.
As a result, imports of passenger tires from China into the U.S. dropped more than 80% from 2014 to 2018, to 8.5 million units last year from 50.4 million in 2014.
They're expected to drop again in 2019 by perhaps as much as 60% to fewer than 4 million units, according to import/export data for the January-July period.
2. M&A activity made headlines throughout 2019
Merger-and-acquisition activity was front and center throughout 2019 — as it has been for most of the past decade — impacting all strata of the industry from retail to manufacturing.
Among the most active throughout the year were Bridgestone Americas/GCR Tires & Services in the commercial sector and Monro Inc. in the retail end of the business.
GCR's role in this case was as a seller, divesting 73 commercial tire centers and a dozen Bandag retread plants in four transactions:
Financial terms were not disclosed in any of these transactions.
Nearer to year-end, Bridgestone bought Tires Inc., a commercial tire dealer with stores in Chehalis and Tumwater, Wash.
The divestitures and acquisition leave GCR with 90 locations in the U.S., down from 200-plus at the business unit's height a few years ago.
Early in the year, Bauer Built Inc. acquired the tire division of Allied Oil & Tire Co. — comprising seven commercial tire centers in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota — extending its commercial reach to 40 sales/service locations and eight retread plants in 10 Midwestern states.
The acquisition filled a void in Bauer Built's existing markets and provided for expansion into new areas. The acquired business generated sales of $102.7 million in fiscal 2017.
Also at year-end, Goodyear acquired Raben Tire Co. of Evansville, Ind., a long-time Goodyear dealership that's ranked among the 50 largest commercial and retail dealerships and retreaders in the U.S.
Raben Tire operates over 30 commercial and consumer tire and service locations and three retread plants, generating roughly $150 million-plus annually. The Raben Tire outlets will operate under the Goodyear Commercial Tire & Service network and retain the Raben Tire name "for the immediate future," Goodyear said.
On the retail side, Monro continued its growth-by-acquisition strategy, taking over 95 retail tire and auto service locations in 10 separate transactions to end the year at 1,289 stores under its nine retail brands.
The largest single acquisition was that of Certified Tire & Service Centers Inc., the Riverside, Calif.-based dealership with 40 stores in California and $45 million in annual sales. The stores are in the San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles metro areas.
That deal expanded Rochester, N.Y.-based Monro's footprint in the West Coast, an area it since has grown further with three more deals; two in California and one in Nevada.
Most recently Monro completed a pair of deals in California — S&S Unlimited Inc. (d.b.a. Skip's Tire & Auto) with six stores in the San Jose area and three Lloyd's Tire Service locations in the Santa Cruz area — as well as the purchase of Superior Tire & Service, with 14 stores in Nevada and four in Idaho.
All of these stores now operate under Monro's Tire Choice brand.
Monro indicated in its second quarter earnings report it had pending agreements for these acquisitions, which represent $25 million in annualized sales, with a sales mix of 55% service and 45% tires.
Other acquisitions completed in 2019 include:
Other acquisitions in the retail sector of note include:
Icahn Automotive Group L.L.C.'s purchase of RPM Automotive Inc., a Jacksonville-based auto repair chain with 10 outlets operating more than 100 service bays throughout northeastern Florida. The deal expanded Icahn's reach in the Jacksonville area, where it had eight Pep Boys-branded retail stores prior to the acquisition.
Greenbriar Equity Group L.P. expanded its holdings in the automotive service sector to 116 stores with a pair of acquisitions in Texas — Lamb's Automotive with 18 locations in the Austin area and Driver's Edge Complete Tire & Automotive with 11 stores in the Dallas/Forth Worth area – in the third quarter to go with its purchase in March of Evans Tire & Service Centers Inc. of San Diego (17 stores).
Greenbriar's GB Auto Service Inc. unit has gone from a non-factor to one of the 20 largest independent tire dealerships in the U.S. in two years, according to Tire Business calculations.
Leeds West Groups (LWG) acquired six Big O Tires locations in New Mexico from a long-time Big O franchise group, extending its reach into New Mexico and expanding its network of Big O and Midas stores to 102.
In the manufacturing sector, Group Michelin acquired Indonesian tire maker P.T. Multistrada Arah Sarana TBK, providing the French tire maker with annual capacity of more than 180,000 metric tons of production and strengthens its presence in the fast-growing Indonesian market. The deal for Multistrada — producer and marketer of the Achilles and Corsa brands — is valued at $545 million; the company generated $317 million in sales in 2018.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. is buying full ownership of Corporación de Occidente S.A. de C.V. (COOCSA), its tire manufacturing joint venture in Mexico, by buying the Mexican partner's 42% stake. Cooper and Trabajadores Democraticos de Occidente S.C. de R.L. de C.V. (TRADOC) set up the joint venture in El Salto near Guadalajara in 2008.
Cooper President and CEO Brad Hughes said acquiring full ownership of COOCSA "is an important step in our strategic plan to optimize our global manufacturing footprint with cost-competitive production of quality tires to meet market demand, in this case throughout Latin America, as well as in North America."
The plant — originally a Continental A.G. factory that Conti closed in 2001 — is rated at 19,000 tires a day with roughly 1,100 employees. A group of Mexican investors bought the facility from the German company and restarted production in mid-2005 using the Pneustone brand.
Nokian Tyres P.L.C. bought Finnish heavy equipment wheel company Levypyörä Oy to complement its Heavy Tyres business.
Nastola, Finland-based Levypyörä supplies several heavy equipment vehicle manufacturers and aftermarket customers in forestry, agriculture and earthmoving applications with two distinct product lines, wheels and wheel structures. Its annual sales are roughly $20 million.
In other business segments:
Myers Industries Inc. acquired the assets of Tuffy Manufacturing Industries Inc., a Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio-based warehouse distributor of tire repair equipment and supplies, in a deal designed to strengthen Myers’ Distribution Segment’s position in the growing commercial auto and truck fleet market. — Bruce Davis
3. North American Tire plants: New, postponed, expanded
First, the good news. Two tire plants opened in North America in 2019, while a third plant was being constructed.
In early October, Nokian Tyres P.L.C. declared its $360 million passenger/light truck tire factory in Dayton, Tenn. — its third plant overall and first outside of Europe — open for business, two years after executives from the Finnish tire maker broke ground on the project.
Nokian Tyres CEO Hille Korhonen and other Nokian executives attended the opening ceremony, declaring the milestone a big step in the company's growth strategy of doubling sales volume in North America by 2023. Even President Donald Trump took note of the opening, congratulating the company during a news conference in Washington D.C., alongside Finnish President Sauli Niinistö.
Two weeks later, Continental A.G. staged a ceremonial grand opening for its $1.4 billion truck tire plant in Clinton, Miss., attended by Christian Koetz, head of Conti's Tire Division, as well as a host of state and local politicians who helped pave the way for the plant.
"The completion of our new tire plant signifies a major step in our global long-term growth strategy for Continental Tires, called Vision 2025," Mr. Koetz said at the grand-opening ceremony.
Continental broke ground in November 2016 on the 840,000-sq.-ft. plant, which is projected to produce 750,000 truck and bus tires annually in the first phase, Conti said, starting with approximately 500 employees.
Bridgestone Corp., the world's top tire maker according to global sales, began construction of a race tire plant at mid-year in Akron, where Harvey Firestone opened his factory 120 years ago.
Bridgestone Americas Inc. will make Firestone-brand race tires there for the NTT IndyCar Series, which includes the prestigious Indianapolis 500. In January, Bridgestone extended a deal to be the sole supplier to the series through 2025.
The 80,000-sq.-ft. facility is under construction on a site a few blocks west of the company's Americas Technical Center in south Akron. Legendary Indycar driver Mario Andretti, 79, was on hand for a media tour of the facility in early November.
In addition, Toyo Tire USA Corp. initiated Phase V production at its plant in White, Ga., adding 1.2 million of capacity. The Japanese tire maker also announced it was adding equipment to the second half of that phase, adding another 1.2M tires.
By the time Phase V is complete (scheduled for July 2021), Toyo said its overall capacity at the Georgia plant will be 13.9 million tires.
And here's the bad news: Two other off-shore tire makers halted plans to build plants in North America.
China's Qingdao Sentury Tire Co. Ltd. and Indian off-highway tire manufacturer Balkrishna Industries Ltd. suspended plans to build tire plants in the U.S.
Qingdao Sentury — which sells tires under the Delinte, Groundspeed, Landsail and Sentury brand names — had disclosed plans in September 2016 to invest $530 million to build a plant in Troup County, Ga., capable of producing 12 million car and light truck tires a year at full capacity. The project represented up to 1,000 jobs.
Sentury originally projected the plant would be operating by 2018, but by mid-2019 only minor site preparation work had been carried out, local sources said, and an office set up by Sentury Tire North America (STNA) in LaGrange, Ga., had closed.
In May, the Development Authority of LaGrange posted a statement on its Facebook page that the "project is on indefinite hold" until the company can secure the financing necessary to complete the work.
BKT disclosed in mid-August that it was suspending its plans for a U.S. tire factory, citing "business uncertainties" related to difficult macroeconomics and the "volatile" climate conditions.
BKT announced plans in October 2018 for a $100 million plant for OTR tires in the U.S., saying the investment would help it accelerate business with North American equipment makers by being able to offer faster deliveries as well as enable it to export to neighboring countries "in a more competitive manner."
The India-based tire maker disclosed its decision to put the plans "in abeyance" in a first-quarter fiscal 2020 financial document. Executives from the company later said its plans for a U.S. plant — which would have been BKT's first outside of India and fifth tire plant overall — will be re-evaluated in another year.
These announcements follow the mid-2018 disclosure that China's Guangzhou Vanlead Group Co. Ltd. had put on hold indefinitely plans it announced in 2017 to invest $1 billion in a tire plant in South Carolina.
And it remains unclear how soon or whether Triangle Tire USA Inc. will follow through with two proposed plants it had announced in late 2017 it was building in a rural area near Rocky Mount, N.C.
The company said back in 2018 that it expected the first plant, for passenger and light truck tires, would be completed by April 2020. Construction was to start this fall, according to local reports. Whether that $580 million project is stalled remains to be seen. — Don Detore
4. 'Discount' suit settled; Mavis rebrands around 200 stores
In a lawsuit contesting the use of "Discount Tire" in its name, Mavis Tire Supply L.L.C. moved to rebrand as many as 200 of its Mavis Discount Tire stores throughout the South, Southeast and Atlantic Seaboard as "Mavis Tires & Brakes at Discount Prices."
The move — announced in October by Mavis on store websites in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Texas — is seen as linked to the settlement of a trademark infringement suit filed in late 2018 by Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Reinalt-Thomas Corp./Discount Tire.
The lawsuit heard in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia sought, in part, to prevent Mavis' use of the phrase in locations where Discount Tire already had a retail store.
Officially, the two companies acknowledged only that they have settled the suit, but the terms of the settlement are not being disclosed publicly.
Mavis Tire will be able to continue using Mavis Discount Tire on its stores in New York, New Jersey and parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, according to terms of a "concurrent registration" agreement the parties reached Aug. 27 regarding their respective trademarks.
Reinalt-Thomas/Discount Tire has used Discount Tire from its founding in 1960 and was granted a federal trademark registration on the Discount Tire Co. Inc. name "in connection with retail auto and light truck tire store services" in 1985, according to the suit.
For its part, Mavis said it has been operating stores using the Mavis Discount Tire name since 1992 and owns federal trademark registration applications for the stylized Mavis Discount Tire marks. Reinalt-Thomas filed an opposition with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board as part of its original suit.
Mavis Tire Supply also argued in documents filed in connection with the suit that hundreds of retail tire establishments across the U.S. use "discount" in their names.
At one point in the trial, Mavis Tire proposed changing its brand to Mavis Discounted Tires, but Reinalt-Thomas objected to that as still being too similar to its own trademark. — Dave Manley
5. Goodyear revamps U.S. operations
It was a rollercoaster year for Akron-based Goodyear, the No. 3 tire maker in the world. Around mid-year, the company announced it was studying a plan to improve "business competitiveness" in the U.S., mirroring a reorganization plan that it had initiated in Germany earlier.
That announcement came on the heels of the company's plans to "modernize and improve operations and efficiency" at the firm's 50-year-old plant in Fayetteville, N.C. A big part of that reorganization includes plans to expand production of high-value tires with rim diameters of 17 inches and greater.
The $180 million expansion was announced following the approval of a 10-year jobs incentive package by the North Carolina Department of Commerce. The incentive package, a renewal of a Job Maintenance and Capital Development (JMAC) grant, is valued at $30 million.
Roughly four months later, the company announced that 740 employees at Goodyear's 90-year-old passenger tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., had accepted contract buyouts as part of a plan to reduce capacity for smaller-rim-diameter tires. The plan is expected to save the company approximately $30 million in 2020 and about $40 million annually thereafter, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Goodyear's newest North American plant, a facility that opened in 2016 in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, came under fire as well.
In September, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, was among a group of politicians who criticized the tire maker for alleged labor violations at its San Luis Potosi plant, after a group of four members of Congress were denied entry to the plant.
Goodyear hit back, claiming Mr. Brown has misconstrued its actions and attitude toward its workers there. It also said it had extended invitations to members of Congress and their staffs to tour the San Luis Potosi plant. — Don Detore
6. Leadership shakeups
Several major tire companies experienced a changing of the guard during 2019, including:
Mr. Ishibashi joined Bridgestone in 1977 and joined the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.'s management team in the U.S. shortly after Bridgestone acquired Firestone.
Since 2003, Mr. Ishibashi has held executive positions of increasing responsibility at Bridgestone's corporate operations in Japan.
The change will become effective in March after a Bridgestone board of directors' meeting.
Bridgestone also promoted Paolo Ferrari to president, CEO and COO of Bridgestone Americas Inc., succeeding Gordon Knapp, who will retire March 31 from his transitional role as a strategic adviser.
Mr. Knapp had been president and CEO of Bridgestone Americas since September 2016,
Mr. Ferrari had been CEO and president of Bridgestone Europe since 2016. He also is executive vice president, executive officer and global digital strategic officer of Bridgestone Corp., as well as a member of the board and chairman of the Bridgestone Americas board.
Mr. Menegaux joined Michelin in 1997 and was picked as Mr. Senard's successor in 2018. Mr. Senard took over as managing partner of the French tire maker in 2007 following the death of Edouard Michelin.
Michelin also promoted Alexis Garcin to chairman and president of Michelin North America, succeeding Scott Clark, who was promoted to group executive vice president.
Mr. Garcin, a 17-year veteran of Michelin, had been senior vice president of Michelin's global long-distance transportation business line since 2018.
Mr. Ikeda had been president and CEO since 2011, while Mr. Yamamoto was an SRI director and general manager of SRI's Asia Pacific regional headquarters since 2016.
Most recently, Mr. Burfien served as the head of global standards and regulations for Conti's Tire Division worldwide.
Kumho also promoted Yong-Sik Shin to a newly created role as head of its America Business division, overseeing the company's three main businesses in North America — Kumho Tire USA Inc., Kumho Tire Canada and Kumho Tire Georgia, the U.S. manufacturing unit.
Mr. Armstrong had been as vice president, business development for the company since 2017. — Kathy McCarron
7. Icahn splits into two companies
Icahn Automotive Group L.L.C. announced it was splitting into two independent aftermarket "Parts" and "Service" companies to focus more clearly on strategies, customers and business opportunities.
The Service company will include the automotive repair and maintenance businesses of Icahn's captive Pep Boys chain and its AAMCO and Precision Tune Auto Care franchise businesses, as well as several regional service centers the company has acquired.
Brian Kaner was appointed Service unit CEO.
The Parts company will include the retail and commercial lines of business of both the Auto Plus and Pep Boys businesses.
"As part of the separation plan, the Parts and Service businesses will each make adjustments to their store networks and continue to streamline and decentralize the organizational structure, empowering local leadership to better serve their unique markets," the company said. — Kathy McCarron
8. AAPEX to add tire focus
The Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo (AAPEX), co-owned by the Auto Care Association and the Automotive Aftermarket Suppliers Association (AASA), will add a section dedicated to products and equipment for servicing tires at its 2020 show.
The annual AAPEX, which is geared to auto service professionals, parts retailers and warehouse distributors, runs concurrently with the SEMA Show in Las Vegas.
The 2020 AAPEX, to be held Nov. 3-5, will feature expanded exhibit space and a new Repair Shop HQ exhibit section to showcase products and equipment for vehicle service professionals. It will also be courting tire industry suppliers to exhibit at the expo.
"In recent years, AAPEX attendees have been asking for a section dedicated to the products and equipment they need for balancing, align and service tires," AAPEX organizers said.
Even though the SEMA's Global Tire Expo - Powered by TIA (Tire Industry Association) features exhibitors involved in tires, wheels, tire service equipment and related products, AAPEX organizers said they "are not actively infringing on anything that SEMA is doing." — Kathy McCarron
9. OK Tire plans to expand across Canada
In April, OK Tire Stores Inc. announced it was committing $75 million (C$100 million) over the next five years to expand distribution capabilities across Canada to support its drive to recruit new franchisees and grow market share.
The expansion project — the most significant in the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company's 66-year history — will add more than 500,000 square feet to OK Tire's network of 11 regional distribution centers and provide a more robust online platform for the member-owned company to compete more effectively in e-commerce.
This includes expanding a distribution center in Valleyfield, Quebec, by mid-2020; relocating centers in Manitoba and in Newfoundland to larger, more modern facilities; and opening a warehouse near Mississauga, Ontario, that will be operational by 2021. These are in addition to a project that doubled the size of a warehouse in Calgary in 2018.
The OK Tire franchise network of more than 300 locations has been growing the past few years by about 30 locations a year.
In addition to expanding and improving the group's physical assets, OK Tire is working on its digital platforms as well with a goal of creating an online customer experience that parallels what customers get in the physical stores.
"Our objective is to future-proof our business," Chief Operating Officer Michael Rutherford said, "which is why we are installing state-of-the-art distribution systems at our new facilities.
"We will be able to carry more products and service our retail locations with an expanded line of tires and automotive products."
In terms of growing the franchise network, Mr. Rutherford said OK Tire management for the most part does it the old-fashioned way — studying the market and singling out businesses and business owners they feel will help strengthen the network.
The majority of new OK Tire franchisees are existing independent dealers, Mr. Rutherford said, and a measurable number of these are referrals from existing OK Tire dealers. The company is starting to see more "institutional" investors as well, he added, who are evaluating which franchise businesses provide the best returns. — David Manley
10. Goodyear eyes future of maintenance
In 2019, Goodyear launched several programs to discover how its tire technology can be used for predictive maintenance more effectively.
The Akron tire maker partnered with Envoy Technologies, a California electric car-sharing service, to use Goodyear's predictive tire-servicing program to forecast and schedule fleet maintenance. Goodyear gathers data from Envoy's connected vehicles and will use its proprietary artificial intelligence technology to predict maintenance. Then the system automatically schedules service, which is done utilizing the tire maker's outlets and mobile vans.
In Europe, Goodyear partnered with Redspher S.A., a Luxembourg-based transport and logistics group, to equip some of its vehicles with sensor-equipped "intelligent" tires that can monitor tire wear and pressure. Goodyear's initiative will tie into Redspher's "Rubiwin" services platform, which helps customers track costs such as fuel, insurance and maintenance.
In May, Goodyear teamed with Prazo Inc., operators of Borrow, a California short-term electric car subscription company, to help maintain its fleet of vehicles. Goodyear said its focus is to service the fleet's tires, as well as provide additional services in order to maximize Borrow's uptime and customer experience. Goodyear is using its Goodyear Mobile Tire Shop vans to service Borrow's customers' vehicles, with the potential to include its company-owned retail stores and aligned dealer network as the pilot program progresses.
Goodyear also is using its technology in a collaboration with Priva Mobility Inc., a provider of mobile offices, to gather tire-operating data from Priva's vehicle fleet.
"Fleets are looking to operate their vehicles as safely and efficiently as possible to meet the needs of their customers," Erin Spring, Goodyear director of new ventures, said. "Digital tire information helps enable this goal by providing proactive information, integrated with their service scheduling needs." — David Manley
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].