Nokian Opens New Research Center

Nokian Tires has announced that it has opened a new center for research and development in Nokia, Finland. The center will cater to the growing demand for premium heavy duty tires by expediting the testing phase of new tire models, while also helping Nokian Tires to maintain its reputation for premium tires that it has maintained for the past 120 years.

Nokian Heavy Tires R & D Manager Kalle Kaivonen said that this is the most remarkable investment that Nokian has made for the development of heavy tires.

The new facility for research and development covers 3, 500 square meters and will play a key role in the three-year strategy that that Nokian Heavy Tires, a subsidiary of the Nokian Tires group, developed to react to the growing global demand for heavy tires. The company’s plan is to spend approximately EUR 70 million and ramp up production capacity by 50 percent within these three years.

Nokian Heavy Tires Plant Director Pasi Antinmaa said in an interview to Traction News that everything is going as planned with the first stage of production plant expansion now being complete. The second part is expected to be ready by April 2019. In Summer 2019, Nokian Heavy Tires will start the installation of new machinery.

“The center will be filled with modern machinery”, says Nokian Heavy Tires Development Manager Matti Kaunisto. “We can triple the number of tires tested and test more variables to serve our OEM clients with the highest standards.”

The new center will be equipped with modern testing machinery for increasingly specific data collection. New innovations at the center will enable the development of groundbreaking future solutions to tackle the growing adoption of electrified and autonomous technologies in the trucking industry. One example is the use of the information collected to move safely and predictably in the case of an unmanned vehicle which will place higher demands on the tire industry.

“Unmanned tractors will be working among us in the future, and those machines need premium tires as well as comprehensive data of those tires to make steering safe and accurate”, said Kaunisto.