Japan’s Yokohama Rubber Co. has opened a new passenger-car tyre plant in China’s Hangzhou. Located in Qiantang New District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the 300,000 sq m plant site will produce 9 million passenger car tyres/year. Construction of the new China plant began in December 2024, and the plant’s start of production in November 2025 is therefore one month ahead of plan.
The new plant will replace another Yokohama Rubber plant currently operating in Hangzhou, and will have a capacity of 3 million tyres greater than that of its predecessor in order to ensure that the Japanese firm can capture the expected increases in demand for passenger car tyres in the Chinese market in the years ahead.
Full-scale production is scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2026. The new plant will increase Yokohama Rubber’s local production of high-inch tires in the Advan global flagship brand and the Geolandar brand of tyres for SUVs and pickup trucks, with a focus on tyres for new energy vehicles, which are expanding rapidly in China.
At the opening ceremony President/COO Shinji Seimiya said the project was completed a month ahead of schedule. The groundbreaking ceremony was held late last year and marked the start of construction of the first plant being built under the “1 year plant” challenge in the consumer tyre business’ growth strategy set forth in Yokohama Rubber’s medium-term management plan Yokohama Transformation 2026 (YX2026), which is being implemented during 2024–2026.
The expansion strengthens the company’s supply of high-value tyres for China’s fast-growing new energy vehicle market, including EV-focused designs and larger rim sizes.