Continental Tyres to introduce new product s at CV Show 13 December 2012

"Challenging" is how Arthur Gregg, Continental Tyres' sales and marketing director for commercial vehicles, described his area of the tyre market in the UK and Ireland in a 2012 year end review.

Despite that, he believes fleet operators are adjusting to tough economic times and that his company will continue to develop and introduce products in line with what the market wants.

Gregg said that, in terms of new commercial vehicle registrations, both the UK and Irish markets broadly paralleled each other. At year end, the UK figures will show a drop in overall registrations of around 3% and in Ireland of just over 1%.

Registrations of light commercials will show the biggest fall, down by 6.5% in the UK and around 2.6% in Ireland.

The picture is different, however, for vehicles over 3.5 tonnes and for heavy trucks and buses.

Sales of 16-tonne plus trucks continued to grow strongly throughout the year in both markets, but there was an even better performance in the bus and coach sector, with UK registrations up by over 50% and in Ireland by an impressive 161.3%.

Looking ahead into 2013, Gregg said that Continental would have a new range of bus and coach tyres at the Commercial Vehicle Show at the NEC in April.

These tyres will be engineered for three segments, he said: Conti Coach for long distance coach travel, with tyres that offer low rolling resistance and high mileage; Conti CityPlus for regional operations between towns and cities; and Conti Urban for city use with continuous braking and acceleration.

Also to be launched at the NEC will be ContiPressureCheck – a tyre pressure monitoring system. This is a direct measurement system with sensors mounted inside the tyre to constantly monitor changes in tyre pressure and temperature.

It delivers a warning to the driver via a display in the cab, enabling corrective action to be taken before a failure occurs.

Author
John Challen

Related Companies
Continental Tyre Group Ltd

This material is protected by MA Business copyright
See Terms and Conditions.
One-off usage is permitted but bulk copying is not.
For multiple copies contact the sales team.