Bridgestone highlights trends from the OE market to watch in 2024 and beyond

London – Bridgestone Corp. has highlighted a series of trends within the European OE tire market: identifying its key areas-of-focus “throughout 2024 and beyond.”

The OE market in Europe, it said, has undergone “huge changes” following the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in 2020 and the subsequent supply-chain disruptions, such as semiconductor shortages.

These factors “heavily impacted new-car sales and production” in the region, the tire maker pointed out in a recent online article.

Energy price increases and inflation spikes in 2022 also contributed to the “successive headwinds” that saw OE demand in Europe drop significantly.

Despite a double-digit recovery in 2023, OE demand is still 20% below pre-Covid levels, said Bridgestone, highlighting the need to adjust to a ‘new normal’.

“We now must see this as a structural change in the market and not just a cyclical adjustment,” said the tire maker, listing increased prices for new cars among the "chief reasons.”

“Looking at the OEMs, there are clear winners and losers in this evolving market,” said Bridgestone, which expects further structural changes in the market as the industry continues to adjust.

Another important driver, according to Bridgestone, is the increasing role of electric vehicles (EVs) in the market and OEMs ‘going all-in’ on electrification.

In the first 10 months of 2023, battery-powered electric vehicles (EV) represented 14% of car registrations in Europe.

When combined with plug-in and mild hybrids, the market share of EV was just over 51%.

“The electric revolution is in full swing, and undoubtedly the main driver for EV adoption is the regulatory requirement for zero emissions vehicles by 2035,” said Bridgestone.

While the target year may seem far away now, in reality it is “only two product cycles away,” the tire major also pointed out.

As a result, OEMs are already working on the vehicle technologies and platforms to be introduced from 2030.

While the historical barriers to EV adoption – like range-anxiety and charging infrastructure – are being addressed, the cost of new EVs is now seen as a core issue.

That’s why several OEMs have announced much cheaper entry-level EVs, retailing at less than €25,000.

What this means for the tire industry

According to Bridgestone, the performance balance required in tires for EVs is somewhat different to that for internal combustion engines.

As a result, it said, OEMs are still adjusting their requirements to find the right balance between key factors like rolling-resistance, wear, noise and wet handling.

Here, Bridgestone said it will tap into its strengths such as virtual tire development to introduce new tires based on evolving OEM requirements.

Sustainability is another important trend, with OEM demands further intensifying.

“If we go back only three years, big corporations talked about high-level aspirations in CO2 emissions, but with little impact on operations,” said the Bridgestone article.

Fast-forward to today and sustainability has become “a fourth pillar” of Japanese group’s OE business, alongside with its commercial, engineering and quality offers.

“The level of detail now requested against the CO2 footprint of our products and the materials used in our tires, for example, is far more complex than it was just a couple of years ago,” it noted.

One of the biggest challenges in the coming years, Bridgestone said, will be how to increase the volume of renewable and recycled materials in tires.

OEMs, it noted, are now “very interested” in knowing where the materials are obtained from, how the quality is guaranteed, and how the external certification is managed.