Five manufacturers that build medium truck tires in North America - Bridgestone Americas Inc., Continental Tire the Americas LLC, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Michelin North America Inc. and Yokohama Tire Corp. – have announced temporary production suspensions due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Here’s a look at those plants’ truck tire manufacturing capacities:
Goodyear currently has the most truck tire manufacturing capacity in North America, according to MTD’s 2020 Facts Issue: 16,500 units. (The Akron, Ohio-based tiremaker’s Danville, Va., plant has a capacity of 11,000 truck tires per day and its Topeka, Kan., plant has a capacity of 5,500 truck tire units per day, according to MTD research.)
Bridgestone is a close second with the potential to manufacture 15,200 truck tires per day, according to MTD data. (Its Warren County, Tenn., plant can build up to 9,000 units per day at full throttle. Its LaVergne, Tenn., factory can produce up to 6,200 truck tires per day at 100% capacity.)
Michelin has not publicly specified which plants it will close. The company’s Waterville, Nova Scotia, plant can produce up to 7,000 units per day at maximum capacity and its Spartanburg, S.C., plant can build 6,400 units at full bore, for a total of 13,400 truck tires, according to MTD.
Continental's plant in Mt. Vernon, Ill., has the capacity to produce 10,300 truck tires per day.
Yokohama’s West Point, Miss., plant has the capacity to build 3,000 truck tires per day.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Co., Hankook Tire America Corp., Kumho Tire Co. Inc. and Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp. also announced shutdowns at their North American manufacturing facilities, but source the truck tires they sell in the United States and Canada from off-shore plants.
