Author: RubberWorld

Continental has officially opened a fully automated high-bay warehouse at the tire production plant in Otrokovice, Czech Republic. It has a storage capacity of more than 930,000 tires. With the facility, the premium tire manufacturer is centralizing its warehouses in the area of Otrokovice. As a result, Continental’s logistics processes could be further optimized while lowering CO2 emissions of its operations.

Yokohama Tire has added California State Parks Foundation to its expanding list of environmental-related partnerships. Yokohama is also working with Tread Lightly! and Surfrider North Orange County on several projects to protect and maintain the ecosystem, from the desert to the ocean.

Sumitomo Rubber North America, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd., announced the promotion of Cliff Stewart to Director of Commercial Truck Tires.

Stewart has over 22 years of experience in the automotive industry, holding positions in business development, marketing, and sales & purchasing. He has spent 18 of those years in the tire industry, including the past eight years with SRNA.

CalTech researchers have engineered an enzyme that can break stubborn man-made bonds between silicon and carbon that exist in widely used chemicals known as siloxanes, or silicones. The discovery is a first step toward rendering the chemicals, which can linger in the environment, biodegradable

The tires being supplied as OE for the new Forester were developed by utilizing specialized tuning to match their tread pattern, profile, and tire structure to the vehicle characteristics, while also using Yokohama Rubber’s proprietary HAICoLab, an AI-based development framework that aims to foster new discoveries and digital innovation by merging human inspiration and creativity with AI’s enormous data processing capability. To achieve the highly quiet ride, an optimal pitch sequence was obtained using evolutionary computation (genetic algorithms), one of the technologies incorporated in HAICoLab. The innovative technologies applied in development of the GEOLANDAR G91 are based on new knowledge obtained by collecting actual data and virtual data generated by simulations and then using AI’s predict, analyze and search functions.

Sumitomo Rubber North America, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd., announced that Carlos Arguello has been named National Sales Manager (East) for Commercial Truck tires.

Arguello has been with SRNA for over 15 years, working in corporate retail, regional and national wholesale, and international sales in the Caribbean and Mexico. Most recently, Arguello worked as a Strategic Account Manager. Prior to joining SRNA, Arguello earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration and management from Florida International University.

Elkem re-started one out of three furnaces at its silicon plant in Salten, Norway. Production will remain halted at the two other furnaces until further notice.
A fire broke out at the Salten plant in Norway on 10 December 2023. The fire started in a building housing raw material, including carbon materials. It was under control by emergency services and mostly extinguished within 24 hours.

The Recycled Rubber Coalition has released a white paper, titled “An Unexpected Electric Vehicle Environmental Problem With Common Sense Solutions,” which examines how the rapid adoption of EVs will lead to an increase in scrap tires and provides practical solutions for the recycling and reuse of these tires.