Continental Tire the Americas’ commercial vehicle tire unit on Thursday, Jan. 5, kicked off its annual meeting in Florida with an announcement regarding its ContiLifeCycle retreading solution. In the opening discussion, Paul Williams, executive vice president for truck tires in the Americas, announced that Continental has made a significant investment in its tread rubber plant in central Mexico.
“We first opened the ContiLifeCycle tread rubber manufacturing plant in May 2011 with the intent of supplying our ContiLifeCycle retread licensees and company-owned plants throughout our current footprint of the U.S., Mexico and the Andean region, and expanding in the near future to include the Mercosur countries,” Williams said to a crowd of more than 150 dealers from throughout the United States and Canada. “Due to overwhelming demand, today I am happy to announce a multimillion dollar investment at this central location, which is occurring more than a year earlier than anticipated.”
The investment, Williams said, includes a capacity increase by adding an additional curing and finishing line, and doubles the size of the manufacturing facility to allow for additional space for both raw materials and work in progress. The facility will have a footprint of more than 4,000 square meters space. Production of Continental’s ContiTread flat treads has been tripled, he said.
“This expansion allows us to accommodate the growing need for retreaded truck tires in our current markets, and to comfortably expand as we reach even further across the Americas,” Williams said. “The result is that Continental now has the ability to cap more than 1.2 million truck tires annually with our ContiTreads. An additional expansion has already been planned for 2014, which involves yet another curing and finishing line to be installed.”
Williams attributes the growth of the ContiLifeCycle business to the need for fleets in the Americas to have an economical lifetime truck tire solution, and also to the high level of interest from dealers in each country.
“We know that the ContiLifeCycle has a lot to offer as far as independence for retreaders, excellent products and great support,” Williams said. “Since we’re already expanding, dealers can be confident that we will be able to meet their needs with a reliable supply of tread rubber and related materials. These things put together are a very attractive combination that we know many dealers are interested in adopting.”
Continental currently is offering 14 ContiTread tread patterns in various widths and depths, and the portfolio continues to expand, said ContiLifeCycle manager John Barnes.
