Hankook Serious Towards Manufacturing Tyres For The EVs

In the coming days, the automobile domain is bound to be dominated by the Electric Vehicles (EVs), which will lead to the surge in the demand for EVs worldwide. And to prepare for the imminent challenge, well-known tyre maker Hankook has committed to create the best tyre technology in order to cater to the demand established by the EV market.

In the year 2015, about 1.26 million electric vehicles were registered across the globe. And this number will rise steadily in future with the majority of demand coming from the China, Japan, United States and European nations.

The South Korean tyre brand, Hankook currently supplies its tyres to the leading electric vehicles like Mercedes Benz C350e, Hyundai Sonata PHEV and Ford C-MAX Energi (PHEV). However, with expansion plans in mind, Hankook intends to get more OE supply deals. Hankook’s EV tyres are manufactured at its Jiaxing plant in China and the Geumsan plant in South Korea. Now, sighting the demand, the company is mulling over to add its Hungary plant too for the production of EV tyres.

The electric vehicle industry is evolving at a decent pace. Moreover, with the introduction of the electric motor, some changes have taken place as to how a car will steer, brake, accelerate and sound. All this poses an interesting challenge to the global tyre manufacturers as they work to make a tyre that works with the electric car.

Two major concerns of the electric vehicles are (a) weight of the EV’s battery and (b) its short mileage range. Hence, tyres with low rolling resistance alongside the structural application of high strength material will work precisely with the EV. The noise of the tyres is another issue; as compared to other standard vehicles, electric vehicles are often quieter, therefore developing a tyre with low road noise will be a tough task. In contrast to the regular tyres, EV tyres need to be developed differently in order to carry out EV’s unique driving characteristics such as quick acceleration and high torque values, which boils down to more pressure on the central part of the tyre that may lead to tyre slip.

As per Hankook, they are employing tailor-made technology to cater the differences in the present electric vehicle market. It is to be noted that Hybrid Electronic Vehicle (HEV) and Plug-in Hybrid Electronic Vehicle (PHEV) models are equipped with the similar technology of the standard automobiles in lessening rolling resistance. Moreover, Battery Electronic Vehicle (BEV) models are powered with different technologies.