Artawheel Tire (Artawheel), a tyre manufacturer based in Ardebil State, Iran, has recently opened a US$ 288.5 million truck tyre production plant at its existing facilities in the northwestern city. The facility, inaugurated by the Iranian president Hassan Rowhani, employs production technology by China’s Gaoce Engineering and will produce some 360,000 units each year of all-steel truck/bus radial (TBR) tyres and light truck tyres, according to European R117 standards.
Artawheel expects the TBR and light truck tyres manufactured at the plant to meet 25% of Iran’s annual demand of 1.2 million units.
Founded in 1987, Artawheel currently manufactures 8,000 daily units of passenger car tyres and 1,000 units of truck/bus, farm and OTR bias tyres; it produced a whopping 23,000 tonnes of tyres in 2018.
Meanwhile, the company founder, major shareholder and project executive Massoud Ganji said the new plant would ramp up production in four years, “Production lines have been installed and we are preparing for wet trial runs at the unit.”