JK Tyre & Industries Ltd. (JK Tyre), an undisputed market leader in truck/bus radials in India, has recently set up European tyre testing equipment to develop its own brand of puncture-proof tyres. JK Tyre remains optimistic on this front, as certain versions of the product already on the market has received positive feedback.
According to V.K. Mishra, Technical director at JK Tyre, the company is anticipating use of the puncture-proof tyres in “all kinds of vehicles, particularly like two and three-wheelers and primarily cars.”
Mishra added that JK tyre has been the first in the country to obtain the equipment to test tyre performance more thoroughly. A skid trailer has been imported and is currently used in one of JK Tyre’s test tracks in Indore.
“We can conduct wet grip and dry grip tests, which we don’t have facilities for in India. We were sending tyres to Europe, China and Spain for tests, but now that we have this equipment, we are developing a surface to align with the European and the ISO specifications. This will result in products that can become internationally acceptable,” Mishra said.
In addition, JK Tyre has a yet-unnamed centre of excellence in IIT Madras, which is a joint venture to verify the performance of these tyres. On account of their state-of-the-art production facilities and R&D efforts, JK Tyre boasts a total production capacity of over 20 million tyres per annum.
Raghupati Singhania, Chairman and Managing director, said, “JK Tyre achieved higher sales on the back of economic recovery, more so in the automotive sector. The company was well positioned to take benefit of this emerging opportunity, and as a matter of fact, it could achieve healthy sales in the replacement market, doing better than the industry.”