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COMPANY NEWS
Retread Sales on the Up, Says Bridgestone – New Innovations Launched at IAA
significant challenge for our franchisees is the upcoming retread labelling regulation,” Lust states. “We still have sufficient time to get prepared and at Bridgestone Bandag we’re doing our utmost to ensure that any regulation will be manageable for the independent retreader. But on top of that we will always go the extra mile for our franchisees. That’s why we will use the full strength of the Bridgestone group to develop and provide all the products, systems, information and support our franchisees will need to secure a prosperous future. Even under new regulations.”
“Finally, we still have a
H002 is A-A-A graded on steer, drive and trailer axles for fuel efficiency and B-B-B graded for wet grip. Lust revealed that the new equivalent FuelTech precured treads will be available from November and will also be manufactured with new tyre compound to provide the best possible rolling resistance and wet grip.
The second opportunity was provided by the launch of FleetPulse, a three-in-one fleet solution composed of a mobile app, a centralised website and tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) hardware, which helps reduce vehicle downtime by automating roadworthiness checks, thereby reducing the
Bridgestone’s Head of Truck and Bus Replacement Sales, Jeroen Lust
The Latest Ecopia from Bridgestone and the Bandag FuelTech retread
Europe is currently seeing a revival in the truck and bus retread market thanks to the economic growth but in a large part also to the planned introduction of tariffs on Chinese tyres entering EU markets. According to Bridgestone the European demand for retreaded tyres has finally stabilised this year, after many years of constant decline. It seems that the negative trend has finally been broken. This
recently.
According to Lust, it is not just retreads that have benefitted from the change in market conditions: new tyre demand is also clearly on the up.
On the subject of retreads, Lust confirmed that this trend is a welcome development for the retreading sector “Back in 2015, we committed to reinvest our benefit from this activity into the competitiveness of our Bandag Franchisees for a few years. Now that
demand is improving, we are happy to see this investment pay off for us as well as our partners” Lust stated, adding that “Thanks to our continued efforts, we are able to add value to the Bandag franchise and investment is starting to come from the franchisees again in equipment as well as in people. Next to our own Bulldog plant, another UK example is Top Treads, who are currently in the
tremendous task ahead of us in reminding and even educating the entire transport sector about the benefits of retreading in general.” Lust adds. “We need to keep explaining and demonstrating that retreading is simply smart business practice on top of being beneficial for the environment. But the momentum is there.”
The IAA provided a number of major opportunities for Bridgestone to announce added value to the Bridgestone Bandag dealer package.
The first of these was provided by the launch of Bridgestone’s latest generation of fuel-efficient Ecopia tyres – the Ecopia H002, which has been designed to offer best-in-class fuel efficiency with no compromise on mileage, combined with outstanding wet-weather performance and full compliance with European winter regulations. The Ecopia
likelihood of unexpected, costly and potentially dangerous breakdowns. FleetPulse is the only fleet management solution on the market combining vehicle checks, booking services, fleet management and TPMS in a single platform. It can be used anytime, by any driver, across all tyre brands, including retreads. The third opportunity was provided by the imminent implementation of RFID in all truck tyres. The existing proprietar y BASys casing and retread production management system will be capable of reading the RFID information instead of the barcode labels, facilitating even faster, more accurate and more efficient operations for Fleets, Bridgestone Partners and of course the Bandag franchisees.
The Latest Ecopia from Bridgestone and the Bandag FuelTech retread
positive news for the sector was revealed by Jeroen Lust, Bridgestone’s Head of Truck and Bus Replacement Sales – EMEA during an interview held on the occasion of the IAA Commercial Vehicle Show in Hannover
process of making some significant investments in their plant. But we have similar examples in other countries as well.”
The retreading business is not out of the woods yet, though. “A
24 Retreading Business