Stephan Sielaff took over as Chief Executive Officer of the Schill+Seilacher Group on October 1. In the rubber and tire industry, the Group is best known for its STRUKTOL® additives. As CEO, Sielaff intends to make greater use of the Group’s international footprint and further strengthen collaboration with customers.

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company announced the election of Joe Hinrichs as chairman of its Board of Directors, effective Oct. 7, 2026. Hinrichs, who will also chair the board’s Governance and Executive Committees, was elected to the company’s board in 2023. He succeeds LauretteKoellner, who will retire in accordance with Goodyear’s Corporate Governance Guidelines at the company’s 2027 annual meeting.

ENGEL expects revenue of around €1.55 billion for the 2026/27 financial year, an increase of approximately ten per cent on the previous year. The business is performing ahead of plan, although it would be premature to speak of a broad recovery in the injection molding market.
Demand is rising most strongly in the US, where customers are moving ahead with projects postponed in previous years. The expansion of domestic manufacturing is also creating both greenfield and brownfield opportunities.

TNO launches polySCOUT, an independent Dutch AI company that designs polymers to specification. Target properties and regulatory constraints go in; lab-validated candidate materials come out. Where the design and selection phase of a new polymer typically takes years, polySCOUT brings it down to weeks. The technology has been developed within TNO since 2022, and TNO becomes a shareholder in the new company.

The new Scorpion Winter 3 completes the renewal of Pirelli’s winter tire range and has been developed to meet the specific needs of SUVs in typical cold-weather conditions. Vehicles in this segment now account for more than 50% of the global market and have distinctive characteristics, including greater weight and a higher center of gravity, which call for tires with dedicated internal structures and tread patterns.

HEXPOL has expanded its automotive materials portfolio with thermoplastics and thermoplastic elastomers containing post-consumer recyclate, including grades with more than 80% recycled content.

The company presented the new materials at Fakuma 2026 in Germany, according to a press release dated Oct. 12. The portfolio includes PC/ABS, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), reinforced polypropylene (PP) and thermoplastic elastomers (TPE).