Tire Safety Week: What to Let Consumers Know?

The original intention of China Rubber Industry Association (hereinafter referred to as CRIA) holding “Green Tire Safety Week”, a large public benefit activity, is to let the ordinary consumers realize the importance of tire safety and know about the knowledge on safe use and maintenance of tires, thus improving the driving safety and reducing the accident rate; to know about green tire and promote going green and environmental protection as well as energy conservation and emission reduction of the whole society; and to let the consumers choose more appropriate tires with better cost performance when purchasing tires. On June 15, on the 2nd “Green Tire Safety Week” held in Qingdao, CRIA held the press conference and invited industry experts to give answers to the media to some problems concerned by the public such as meaning of tire safety week, current quality and safety situation of Chinese tires, making and publication of tire grading standard, how the consumers select and purchase tires, etc.

Performance of Chinese Tires Is Not Worse than That of International Brands

Tire is the only ground engaging component of the automobile as well as an important product concerning the life safety of the drivers and the passengers. However, since the tires, especially passenger car tires, of domestic brands, have late start and insufficient brand publicity while the passenger car tires of international brands have strong first impressions on the consumers due to early entry of Chinese market and flourishing of Chinese automobile industry, the common people are not fully aware of the quality and safety guarantee of Chinese tires and some consumers prefer to choose expensive tires of international brands.

As for the above phenomenon, Bao Jingping, chief engineer of Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group Rubber Co., Ltd., expressed that through precipitation and development of nearly 10 years, both the production technology and product quality of Chinese tires had a huge leap forward; and tire manufacturing had unprecedented emphasis and breakthrough from selection of raw materials, technology formula to equipment application, with achievements obvious to all. She believed that at present, Chinese tires were not inferior to overseas tires.

Li Zhongdong, chief engineer of Qingdao Sentury Tire Co., Ltd., thought that the test of Consumption Proposal column of CCTV on tires of domestic and overseas brands some time ago indicated that tires of domestic brands had little difference in user experience, safety, professional evaluation and environmental performance with tires of international brands, Chinese tires had been roughly the same with those of international brands no matter in fuel economy or dry and wet braking safety performance, and even some brands surpassed international brands in some performances. In addition, during the industry upgrading, the automation level of Chinese tires also were geared to international standard. For example, as for 4.0 Tire Smart Factory of Sentury, the quality stability of its tire products reached a relatively high level.

Shi Weiquan, CEO of Planning and Sales Market of Triangle Tire Co., Ltd. China, expressed that domestic tires were better in safety and abrasion resistance before since domestic tires had a more conservative design and higher safety factors during the production process, but they had a gap with those of international premium brands in performance in comfort, controllability, dry and wet performance, rolling resistance, noise, etc. However, in recent years, along with technical progress as well as enhancement of environmental protection and safety awareness, the quality of tires of domestic brands had a great progress. For example, in 2011, Triangle Tire established National Engineering Laboratory on Tire Design and Manufacturing Technique, which could carry out tire test with the same standard with performance test of tires of international brands to ensure that the produced tires could reach international level in high- end performance.

Chai Yongsen, chairman of Doublestar Group Co., Ltd., introduced that in recent years, Doublestar always followed the tenet of “going green and environmental protection as well as safe travel” to create products and carried out industrial upgrading in three aspects: firstly, build international technical research & development center and international graphene laboratory; secondly, innovate the ecosphere of industry 4.0 to improve the manufacturing quality; thirdly, upgrade the whole system with scientific and perfect test service system to realize going green and environmental protection. Relying on lean production and product development not only largely improved the manufacturing level of Doublestar tires, but also realized user customization. In the field of safe tires, Doublestar recently launched one safe tire conforming to the highest European standard and suitable for Chinese ordinary people, especially for women, to the market. With core advantages such as iron skin patent, body armor technology, tire self-repairing technology, etc., it not only satisfied the requirements of green tire standard, but also had performances such as crashworthiness, scratch resistance, etc.

Chai Yongsen also introduced “service 4.0” and “industry 4.0” ecospheres innovated by Doublestar. “Service 4.0” ecosphere overturned the traditional agency mode to realize zero distance communication with the users and transfer from “selling products” to “selling services”; “industry 4.0” ecosphere was mainly to realize mass customization of the users and improve the smart manufacturing level in China. Doublestart took the lead to establish industry 4.0 factory of truck and bus tires in the world, which not only largely increased the quality standard, but also reduced the product reject ratio by over 80%, and tripled the labor productivity.

Xiao Qian, general manager of Prinx Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Company, expressed that Prinx Chengshan once was the holding company of American Cooper in the past nine years, and at present, the whole production system of the company was still implemented according to the American standard. During the selection of raw materials and the whole manufacturing process, Prinx Chengshan actively adopted new environment friendly raw materials and introduced new processes to comply with the green tire development trend, thus realizing integration of “information technology and industrialization”, improving the production efficiency and reducing the energy consumption. The development of the enterprise was consistent with the keynote of going green and environmental protection promoted by the nation.

Bao Jingping also emphasized that although Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group Rubber entered the tire industry relatively late, it had a relatively higher starting point and positioning and its whole development was very consistent with going green and environmental protection advocated by the industry at present. In recent years, the quality of the tires produced by the company was recognized by domestic and overseas users. At present, the gap of Chinese tire industry was in concept, more introspection and guidance were required, going green and environmental protection were emphasized and consumption demand was guided.

How Shall the Consumers Select and Purchase Tires?

Due to little tire knowledge, at present, the vast majority of the consumers either purchase OEM tire brands or choose international brands with high popularity or follow the suggestions of the tire sales personnel when selecting and purchasing tires, and very few select the tires suitable for himself/herself according to self demand. Then how on earth shall the consumers select and purchase the tires?

Shi Weiquan suggested that the consumers must start from self demand for tire performance when selecting and purchasing tires. For example, Triangle Tire had four tires with different performances: ordinary tires, which were suitable for passenger cars of below 200,000 Yuan with balanced performance in each aspect, high abrasion resistance and affordable price; comfort tires, which were suitable for high-end vehicles of 400,000 Yuan ~ 500,000 Yuan with low rolling resistance and noise and relative higher price; off- road tires, which were specially designed for off-road vehicles and possessed different performances according to different road conditions such as urban off-road, rural off-road, etc.; and taxi tires, which were specially designed for taxis with prominent abrasion resistance and long service life. Therefore, when selecting and purchasing tires, the consumers must select the correct tires in performance according to self demand. In addition, brands with service and quality guaranteed shall be selected when purchasing domestic tires. 

Xiao Qian thought that as the consumers knew more and more about the tire performance, the tires of the automobile OEM brands were no longer the only selection of the consumers when purchasing tires. The consumers should learn to select tires according to self demand instead of selecting international brands blindly. Seen from current market environment, the concept of the consumers had changed silently and was becoming more rational through understanding of domestic tire brands and tire safety performance.

Xiao Qian said, through investigation, it was found that at present, some tires had problems in the market, which were not always the problems of tire quality, but more problems of use, such as insufficient air pressure, wrong selection of tires, irregular use like external impact, etc. Therefore, interacting with the consumers and guiding the consumers to correctly use tires were particularly important.

Shi Weiquan also suggested that the consumers should go to professional tire store for tire replacement since tire replacement involved professional technology. In the current situation where domestic economy was depressed, the nation advocated boosting of domestic demand and in the case where the quality and performance satisfied the requirements, the consumers should support domestic products and use the products of national brands.

Implement Tire Grading to Accelerate Industrial Upgrading

As for China, a tire power in the world, green and low-carbon development has become the inevitable choice for transformation and upgrading of its tire industry. In this Tire Safety Week, CRIA publicly released Tire Grading Standard, Administrative Regulations on Tire Label and CRIA tire label types to make Chinese tire grading formally enter the voluntary implementation stage.

Chai Yongsen thought that the implementation of tire labeling system could promote upgrading of tire quality standard. “This is also an embodiment of actively responding to national supply-side structural reform and is to realize from creating effective supply to creating new demand. The manufacturing level of many Chinese products has reached world advanced level, but why many Chinese still go abroad to buy toilet lid and electric cooker? The main reason is that Chinese quality standard is different from that of foreign countries, in addition, many enterprises lack of brand awareness and even have no services.”

Chai Yongsen said that Tire Grading Standard published this time had definite grading standard and access standard mainly in three aspects, rolling resistance (fuel consumption), wet testing (safety) and noise (comfort), and was consistent with European standard. Through implementation of this standard, firstly, the thought of the people worshiping and having blind faith in foreign things could be eliminated since the standard and the quality were the same; secondly, the enterprises would be promoted to pay attention to research and development and sell high-standard and high-quality tires; thirdly, the development resources and expenses of the enterprises could be saved; fourthly, outdated capacity and products could be eliminated as quickly as possible to accelerate creation of China’s world famous brands. Xu Wenying, vice chairman and secretary general of CRIA, expressed that many countries such as Europe, America, Japan, etc. had successively launched tire labeling laws and regulations. To drive industrialization of China’s green tire and promote transformation and upgrading of China’s tire industry, CRIA organized key domestic and overseas tire enterprises and technical experts to launch Tire Grading Standard, Administrative Regulations on Tire Label and CRIA tire label types through four years of unremitting endeavor. At present, voluntary labeling was implemented, the nation had no compulsory measures and legislation also required a process.

Xu Wenying believed that the key to guaranteeing successful implementation of tire labeling system was supervision. “When communicating with European Tyre & Rubber Manufacturers’ Association (hereinafter referred to as ETRMA), we learned that one lesson learned by them when launching Labeling Act was lack of supervision of later period so that there were many problems during the implementation process. Therefore, CRIA launches Administrative Regulations on Tire Label at the same time.” She said that the consumers could identify the authenticity of tire labels on “Chinese Tire Label Declaration and Management Data Platform” of CRIA official website through scanning 2D bar code on the label of the purchased tire. Meanwhile, CRIA would occasionally organize third party organization to supervise the products of the enterprises applying for label, adopt the method of randomly selecting tires from the market and entrust the laboratories or testing grounds with third party qualification to carry out test, and CRIA would announce the results. As for the enterprises placing false labels, CRIA would regulate the market with two measures, media exposure and withdrawal of granted tire labels.

Zhu Hong, director of CRIA Technical and Economic Committee, expressed that it was hoped to realize the functions of eliminating outdated capacity and low-end products and suppressing vicious market competition through tire labeling. In the aspect of promoting construction of tire labeling system, CRIA input a large amount of manpower, material resources and financial resources to organize the experts to proceed with aspects such as test, structural design, formula design, laws and regulations, etc. and carry out a large amount of preparatory work. Chinese tire labeling system was made by learning from experience of various parties such as EU and in combination with Chinese conditions and the method of “loose entry and strict management” was adopted for labeling. She hoped that the nation could grant certain support to the enterprises placing labels in policy in future. In addition, CRIA would formulate implementation rules for spot inspection of tires.

Li Zhongdong thought that the launch of Administrative Regulations on Tire Label would play an active role in regulating tire market and push Chinese tire manufacturing to a new height, accelerate industrial transformation and upgrading, reduce loss and implement environmental protection.

Raw Materials Are Premise of Tire Safety Assurance

Mr. Jeff Valentage, tire marketing manager of Exxon Mobil, expressed that for long, Rubber Manufactures Association, ETRMA, etc. had been carrying out work and activities for promoting standardization of rubber tire industry, however, the challenges still existed. Guiding the consumers to establish a concept of green safe tires was a difficult and long way. Such activities had been promoted in America and Europe for many years, but few suppliers of raw materials relevant to tires participated. However, CRIA was open and introducing the suppliers to participate in the activities would let the consumers better understand tire safety from the perspective of raw materials.

Mr. Jeff Valentage said that as the producer of BIIR, Exxon Mobil carried out many activities in the world, for example, delivering the importance of tire pressure and guiding the consumers to know about the importance of tire pressure on tire safety through different tire companies even OEMs. In Tire Grading Standard published this time, the data on the label was the performance tested under specific environment; however, many consumers did not know that the performance indicated on the label would not be embodied during the use if the tires had no good inner liner to maintain the tire pressure. Exxon Mobil hoped to join hands with CRIA to include the performance of the tires such as pressure maintenance, etc. in the future administrative regulations on tires to make the tire labeling system more comprehensive and scientific and to provide the tires with more guarantee for the consumers.

Ren Xuebin, vice general manager of Rubber Branch of Shandong Chambroad Petrochemicals Co., Ltd., a producer of raw material BIIR in China, thought that the demand of BIIR, one of important raw materials of green tires, would constantly increase. Shandong Chambroad possessed strict product quality management system and was geared to international market; from selection and factory entry of raw materials, production management to control of percent of pass, each link was strictly regulated and managed to guarantee production of high-quality products. The company paid attention to introduction of refine technology and management for technical improvement and optimization to improve the overall level. In the future, the company would innovate and develop more new material projects, constantly go deep into green rubber industry and build green rubber wise factory.