MTD Mid-Year Q&A: Michelin Leans Into Innovation

Michelin North America Inc. is leaning heavily into product innovation and its dealer network, CEO Matthew Cabe tells MTD in this exclusive interview.

MTD: Can you bring us up to speed on Michelin's first half? What have been some of the company's challenges and achievements?

Cabe: I think it's not a surprise to anyone that given the context we’re in, it can be a little bit challenging, especially when we talk about raw material sourcing and some of those areas. All of us are facing some of the same challenges. If you look at our first quarter results, we talked about that a little bit. Really, with this ability to source the products that we need to be able to continue operations in North America, luckily we’re in a good spot. We have a very robust supply chain, so we continue to be able to get what we need, so that's not a question.

More importantly, though, we’ve had a pretty good start to the year when it comes to products. If you're a LeMans fan, maybe you got to see that we launched the Endurance tire there – 50% recycled/renewable material. And every time I watch one of the IMSA (International Motors Sports Association) races, all they do is talk about how much better performing the tire is (and) how much more it's bringing to them. The warm-up times are exceptional. It stays at peak performance much longer than we had before. So that's been great for us.

On the truck side of the business, the X Line Grip D... we knew it was going to be a remarkable product, but the feedback we're getting from the field is 'This thing is as good as we thought it could ever be.' I'm hearing conversations from truck drivers who are saying they were a little hesitant at first. They weren't sure what they were getting into. And now they're beyond sold. It is really performing at a high level.

MTD: What's your take on the state of the consumer, commercial truck and off-highway (OTR and ag) tire markets in the U.S. at the moment, including demand? What are you seeing in the field and what are you hearing from your customers?

Cabe: It's a unique market. I would say that we are starting to see – I'm sure you’re seeing on the OE side – that business is picking up a little bit in the commercial space, which is good news. We really need that for the industry. I’m happy that our OEM partners are able to generate some business and also for our fleets customers - that they're able to invest in new trucks. I think that’s a positive sign. Obviously, there are some headwinds with diesel prices, but what I see is a re-professionalization of the industry. And hopefully – and I think it's going to be quite positive for the second half of the year – we're going to continue to see that commercial business get stronger and stronger. They're in a multi-year freight recession and I'm in their corner, hoping that its's going to turn and we’re going to start to see some positive light on the other side of that.

MTD: What are you seeing in the replacement PLT tire segment?

Cabe: We’ve had pretty good start to the year in PLT. We feel like the offerings we have on the table today are hitting the market’s needs.

MTD: Any thoughts on the off-highway (OHT) side – both ag and OTR? Are you seeing some indicators that these markets are starting to stabilize a little bit?

Cabe: The OE side of ag, kind of like the truck side, is not as strong as it should be, but it's starting to head in the right direction. OTR probably depends on which area of the country you’re in ... but in the construction space and the material handling space, it seems to be healthy.

MTD: When we talked in September 2025, you mentioned that Michelin has new distribution partners that it's "leaning into." Can you bring us up to speed on progress Michelin has made on that front? Can we expect to see continued investment in National Tire Warehouse (NTW)?

Cabe: What we said in September ... where we thought we'd be is where we are. NTW, of course, is one of our partners, but they're not our only partner. When it comes to independent dealers, I think we're able to serve them better than we have in the past. I find that our partners today are really aligned with us and we’re able to deliver and that’s all of our partners in that space. I think we’re learning year over year how we can do better to lean into them and help them be successful.

MTD: I want to talk about brands and brand positioning a little bit. As we know, tier-three and tier-four brands continue to gain some share in the replacement PLT tire channel. What are Michelin's plans to counteract this? How will Michelin go to market with its premium brand or perhaps other brands versus these less-expensive, but increasingly popular options?

Cabe: I’ll start with the trucking business. I talked about the X Line Grip D... (which is) 20% better (than its predecessor) on basically all the criteria inside that product. That's what Michelin needs to do. We need to bring innovation to market that helps our customers – in this case, our fleet partners - to be able to save money on their business, where we try innovation and simply show our value. What we can do is we can show that over time, the best option for most fleets is to go with a high-performing product. When you get the rolling resistance, therefore you get the fuel economy and that's increasingly important, based on the period that we're in today. And you get longevity. We have up to four lives inside of that product. So we can just continue to retread that and be able to bring very strong performance back to that product. That's our challenge at Michelin: to be able to raise the bar and make sure that the value we offer in the market just continues to get better and better and distinguish ourselves from the pack.

MTD: Any thoughts on the consumer side, looking at it through the PLT tire lens? Michelin has always been marketed and sold as a premium brand, but you have a few other brands in your repertoire, too...

Cabe: I appreciate you saying that. I can go down the list. I can talk about (the Michelin) CrossClimate2 and the value that CrossClimate brings there – again, in innovation – and that reaches a very premium segment of the market. You also have long-lasting and durability-focused tires lines like the Defender products, which is the gold standard there, and you can’t not mention the BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A K03. I worked on the BFGoodrich brand for some time and the all-terrain product is exceptional. It's a remarkable product.

MTD: When we last spoke in fall 2025, you said that "today, we find ourselves in a situation that's very complex and week after week, month after month, the entire environment around us is changing. It causes us to need new competencies." Can you elaborate on that? What are some of these new competencies that Michelin is developing and/or deploying?

Cabe: I’ll start with our team and the agility that we need to be able to react inside today's market. The world is changing at an accelerating pace. And I think if you go back to where we were in September, the last time we talked, and think about what AI (artificial intelligence) large language models were able to do then and what they're able to do know, it is changing. What it means for us, if you take the corporate side of things, it means that we leverage it in a different way and we can find new uses for that. And that's a different competency. I could go on for hours about this topic.

There’s supply chain, where day we’re learning to be more agile. How do we react to what's happening around us and be prepared for that? And then inside our factories, we have a lot of people who are continuing to get up to speed. It is a challenging environment and all of the people who work in our industry understand that it takes a level of artisan precision to be able to manufacture a tire. We continue to lean intro that and prepare this new generation that's coming into our factories.

MTD: What are some of the bigger challenges facing the U.S. tire market - and in particular, tire distributors and dealers - at the moment, from your point of view?

Cabe: Last week, I had the opportunity to see a number of dealers. I was on the B2B side ... talking to some of (our) truck tire dealers. Finding quality skilled labor in our market is difficult. When I look at the challenges of our industry, I think that's a place where we’re all up against that challenge of finding the right level of talent ... technical talent.

MTD: What can we expect to see from Michelin during the rest of 2026 and into 2027?

Cabe: A lot of what you've seen out of Michelin in past years. We're going to continue to lean into innovation. I just finished speaking to a group of engineers about how they’re introducing new technology into our manufacturing sites and that is really rewarding. If I kind of close the loop back on the truck side, we’ve launched TreadVision, which is our retreading process inside our MRTI (Michelin Retread Technologies) plants. And it's next-level. It’s using AI. It’s using robots. We’re transforming the old-school retread facility into something that's highly modern. The way we’re able to look at a product that comes off a truck ... and understand what the issues are that then we’re going to take into account when we do the buffing and we’re going to correct and then check the product at the end ... all they do throughout that process isrevolutionary. We’re going to continue to push on TreadVision. We have a number of installations planned. That's a major advancement that we’re going to see coming in the rest of 2026.

Michelin made a decision a long time ago not to have its own company distribution, so we do really heavily on the independent dealer. We think we help them by bringing innovation to the market, but we we're not selling directly to end consumers. We’re counting on the (tire dealership) counter sales person – we’re counting on the dealer principals – to support our products in the market and get the message out there and we really, really appreciate the work they're doing. We will continue to do our part in manufacturing here locally, bringing those products to them as quickly as we possibly can, and to raise the bar.