Japanese tyre maker Yokohama has started the local manufacture of tyres in India at its new plant in Bahadurgarh, Haryana. At current capacity, the plant can produce upto 2,000 tyres per day. Initially, the plant will manufacture tyres from Yokohama’s Earth-1 and S-Drive ranges, while the rest of the range will continue to be imported from Japan and the Philippines as before.
The Earth-1 line is Yokohama’s ‘mass’ offering with 25 sizes in the 13 to 15 inch range. While the Earth 1 line of tyres has been on sale since October last year, the tyres have been tweaked for Indian conditions before local production commenced. Enhancing durability over poor roads was the prime area of focus to ‘Indianise’ them.
The sportier S-Drive range of tyres will be manufactured in 10 sizes in the 14 to 16 inch range. Worth a mention is that the local manufacture has not resulted in a reduction in prices. According to company officials, the tyres were priced competitively to begin with, and hence there wasn’t a need to rework the pricing structure.
Yokohama is also looking to expand its presence across India. At present, Yokohama tyres are available at 600 dealers and 23 exclusiveYokohama Club Network vendors.