ERJ Magazine May/June edition

Among our lead news items is a report on the EU’s imposition of tariffs on Chinese truck & bus tires. Many believe that such measures should have happened years ago – not least to protect the retreading industry – while others point to the likely future impact on the market, including in terms of product-supply.

Another news report covers the ETRMA’s call on EU regulators to safeguard access to in-vehicle data. While car companies do share a lot of data with tire makers and others, there is uncertainty around the increasing volume of potentially safety-critical information being collected from vehicles on the road and during servicing.

Then, in our Game-changing technologies feature, senior figures from the tire industry offer valuable insights into the increasing impact of digitalisation on the design, manufacture and supply of tires – in line with the theme of this month’s Future Tire conference in Cologne.

Leading that feature is an excellent article on disruption by Harm Voortman of VMI, whose advice to all players in the tire industry is “… not to let others disrupt you: instead, disrupt yourselves.”

The need to respond to the increasing demands of regulators and indeed society in areas of sustainability and environmental stewardship is of equal or – many would argue – even greater importance.

In this issue, we give our Postscript platform over to Peter Taylor, OBE, who urges the tire industry to grasp what have so far been the missed opportunities around producer responsibility.

Given the increasing fall-out from recent bad publicity to hit the plastics industry, Taylor’s article is a call for manufacturers, recyclers and all other stakeholders to unite and proactively develop solutions to the issues posed by end-of-life tires – before it is too late.