Cheap Chinese imported tyres, with a price tag up to 70% lower than premium tyres, are becoming a popular economic choice for Fleet Operators (FOs) and a way of simplifying lifecycle management. Many budget tyres are available for less than the cost of raw commodities for premium tyre manufacture in the EU. A premium truck tyre may cost around €350 vs €80 for a Chinese equivalent. However, FO's do not realise that in the long term, these cheaper budget tyres increase the FOs costs. Across Europe in 2016, sales of truck tyres exceeded 15 million (including both replacement and OE tyre), many of which are manufactured in the by EU. Against this, 7 million tyres were imported, of which 4.4 million were Chinese.
Cheap budget tyres do not offer the same tyre life as premium brands. The ethos of cheap tyres is ‘use and replace’ rather than re-treading, the standard approach for premium.
Poor performance in changing conditions, coupled with the fast tyre wear because of the poor material compounds lead to a threefold increase in tyres disposed off, or going to landfill - this is both wasteful and dangerous. In addition, tyre recycling is problematic, with each tyre having >200 constituent materials. In worst scenarios, large tyre piles have caught alight with catastrophic consequences - an illegal fly-tip of more than 75,000 used tyres in Spain caught alight requiring the evacuation of > 9,000 people. Tyre fires are difficult to extinguish and can smoulder for long periods and emit dangerous levels of pollutants.
To solve this problem, premium tyres need to become the tyre of choice. Premium tyres are manufactured for performance in varied conditions whilst offering optimal tyre wear to maximise life. Buying premium tyres therefore allows tyres to be used longer, as well as being more suitable for re-treading or re-grooving to increase tyre life three-fold. Re-treading is the backbone to the European tyre industry, but is labour-intensive. In 2015, the market for re-treading across the EU-27 was valued at €1.2bn with some 5.4 million tyres being processed for re-treading. Over 50% of the revenue in this industry goes directly to payroll – over 32,000 jobs are supported by the EU re-treading industry. Every time a single truck tyre is re-treaded to extend its life: 44kg of rubber, 68 litres of Oil and 182kg of CO2 is saved. As an example of how important re-treading is to growth of companies, Bandvulc re-tread 4,000 tyres per week with 420 employees. This is just one example of how the re-treading industry can impact growth; there are many of these types of companies dotted all over Europe. The re-treading industry that is core to fulfilling circular economy principles of the EU is under threat by these cheap Chinese tyres. The cheap and simple alternative presented by Chinese budget tyres, has damaged the re-treading industry has seen a decline in popularity of re-treading. Across the EU-5, the re-treading industry has seen a decline of 20%, which poses a threat to a large proportion of jobs. If lifecycle management of tyres, including re-treading, was made simpler, it could revitalise the European re-treading industry, as well as allowing prominent EU premium tyre manufacturers to regain lost market share, reignite growth in the European re-treading market and, in the long run, save FOs money.
The goal of OnTrack is to create a solution that will enable full lifecycle traceability for commercial truck tyres. The core technology is an RFID tag that can hold all the required details such as: Standards Applicable; Manufacturer; Brand; Type of Tyre; Country of Origin; Temperature Rating; Material Breakdown; Treadwear Rating and production period as a minimum. Each tyre has up to 200 different materials in its composition, which all need to be handled differently at end of life. OnTrack holds all of the manufacturing details including these 200+ data points. With OnTrack, every material contained within the tyre can be clearly identified and logged so that the end-of-life can be planned accordingly.
