Apollo Tyres’ Chennai facility is gearing up for the global supply of passenger car tyres to leading automotive manufacturers Ford and Volkswagen in the European markets.
“The manufacturing plant at Oragadam has received Ford Q1 and Volkswagen A and these superior ratings mean that we can supply tyres to any of its plants globally from here,” said John Devadason, Unit Head.
The pilot run for supplying tyres to Volkswagen will commence in May that will comprise approximately 1,000 tyres and later for Ford Europe, he told a visiting group of journalists from Kochi.
Besides, the company is currently in the process of developing Yukthi Rath tyres for Defence services to be used for Army vehicles in Srinagar.
The particular 13-R-22.5-Endu Trax – MA specification tyres are currently not available in India. The pilot supply of six number tyres will start next week followed by the first consignment beginning April from the Chennai facility.
Apollo Tyres has been supplying bias tyres to the Defence services for a long time now, he said.
The Chennai facility is the company’s latest ‘greenfield facility, which is one of the most advanced tyre manufacturing units in the region. In addition to catering to the domestic (OE & Replacement) demand, the company is also exporting tyres from this plant to Europe, ASEAN region and West Asia.
This facility also produces winter tyres for the European market, Satish Sharma, President, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa (APMEA), Apollo Tyres, said in a communication.
The all-radial Chennai facility has a capacity of 16,000 passenger car tyres and 6,000 truck-bus radials per day.
The company is already in the process of doubling the truck-bus radial capacity of this unit to 12,000 tyres per day with an investment of ₹2,700 crore.
The currency demonetisation has benefited domestic tyre manufacturing companies in a big way, restricting the flow of cheap Chinese tyres.
Post demonetisation, these imports have come down to around one lakh tyres per month. These truck-bus radials from China, which are dumped into the country are 25-30 per cent cheaper than the domestic TBRs, Sharma said.
(The correspondent was in Chennai at the invitation of Apollo Tyres)