Rubber technology has been evolving with engine technology, says Dr Rainier van Roessel, Board member, Lanxess AG. He was delivering one of the opening speeches at the Lanxess Rubber Day, the biennial event that was held for the first time in Mumbai on January 21. The theme this year was ‘High-tech rubber for mobility and emerging trends’.
The event also saw several diverse panels comprising experts from Indian tyremakers as well as from Lanxess speak about issues concerning the future of mobility, technological trends, and overall road safety. The tone for the five-hour-long session was set by Dr van Roessel who said that the overall challenge for the automotive sector is to promote more mobility but with less resource consumption and as “rubber is central to our heritage,” Lanxess wants to make its own unique contributions.
In his lecture, he alluded to the two mega trends of our time – the definite increase in mobility and urbanisation. While tyres account for half of the global rubber consumption in the emerging markets, some of the challenges, he said, included the fact that demand for radials is growing rapidly thanks to the building of highways and under the hood parts; the need for heat-resistant parts such as seals and gaskets is one significant demand. Dr van Roessel spoke about his company’s upcoming facility for butyl rubber that is being built in Singapore (see interview alongside) and which will cater to the Indian market.
Also addressing the event was the secretary in the Department of Heavy Industries, M F Farooqui, who admitted that while the country’s Automotive Mission Plan has seen a dip in 2012, it is important to see the larger picture and in this regard, the Mission is broadly on track. He alluded to the recent EV Mission announcement by the prime minister and the government’s decision to reduce emission intensity by 2020. More importantly, he said that while India’s priority is to tackle its poverty, ‘we must recognise that green business is important, irrespective of what is said in global treaties that concern such green issues.”
Future of mobility
The first panel on the future of mobility in India threw up a variety of interesting perspectives with one speaker talking about the need to have an integrated policy to manage traffic flows. Dr Arup Chandra, Apollo Tyres’ R&D head, spoke about India’s capabilities in the tyre-making industry, saying that India has the capabilities of making a range of tyres for the cycle up to big trucks but not aero-sector ones. Dr Chandra made a hugely significant point when he said that while tyremakers are ready to manufacture and sell run-flat tyres, their use is not yet required by Indian law.
Dr Jan Paul de Vries, who has been appointed as head of Lanxess' High Performance Elastomers business unit, said that as global companies enter India, the need will be for global-level quality which is where, he said, Lanxess has a role.
Speakers also made key references to issues around EVs such as the need for incentives, government support and also enabling legislation. Other panelists spoke about how consumers now have more options as far as tyres go but also threw up the issue of consumer awareness about ‘green’ tyres. In this context, the comments by Dr Axel Stepken, board member of TUV SYD AG, about an interview-based survey in India indicated rather encouragingly that 95 percent of consumers are interested in green technology while 85 percent of manufacturers also evinced interest.
It was a theme that surfaced later in another panel discussion as the speakers debated whether consumer or end-user demand is enough to bring about changes in safety-related aspects. One response centered around the fact that the needs of OEMs (and their customers) and the aftermarket are different. Consumers also need to be aware of cost-related issues concerning tyres, said one panelist.
At this point, the issue of tyre labeling was broached and speakers said that if the government does indeed define a road map, then awareness issues will come to the fore.
Rajiv Budhraja, director-general, Automotive Tyres Manufacturers Association of India, made the point that India has followed a top-down approach on safety issues – seats and helmets were examples mentioned – and that this does not really work. The need, he emphasised, is for a favourable policy framework.
Agents of change
No discussion at any fora, whether automotive or not, is ever complete without a reference to social media and it was up to Stepken who made a reference to the 60 million Indians on Facebook. Elaborating on the powerful influence of the end-user, he referred to the Indian diaspora – 20 million- strong who could be agents of change, having seen advances in tyre/safety technology in the mature markets. And then Dr Joachim Grub, head of Lanxess' performance butadiene rubbers business group, spoke about the need to know the lifecycle costs of tyres and the need to aim at efficient use of raw materials in their manufacture.
Yet another panel took up the issue of tech trends in rubber compounds but the overall discussion didn’t quite touch upon the issue in the depth required though one speaker broached the issue of the Maruti A-star recall that was due to affected gaskets and O-rings. Suppliers must, he stressed, pay attention to prices, design and material in a larger context.
The discussion was led on by audience questions as to how R&D developments can be commercially implemented and whether this was a sustainable proposition. SMEs, it was alleged, are being squeezed by Tier 1 players and this means that the business of making parts affordably is a continuing challenge but the players cannot afford not to stay on track as regards technology.
The issue of tyre recycling also came up and the prognosis in the words of one speaker is “headed for problems”. With just under eight percent of a tyre recycled, the challenge is to recycle more parts.
A corporate film on the impact of butyl-in-tread in braking speeds did wonders for the panel discussion on ‘Driving growth and delivering safety’, which saw some interesting points being raised by the Volvo Chair on biomechanics and transportation, IIT, Prof. Dinesh Mohan. Another speaker, Dr Ron Commander, who heads the Lanxess butyl rubber business unit, used the film to demonstrate how the braking distance for tyres equipped with this, is shorter on wet conditions. Lanxess will shortly make winter-use tyres and commence testing them, he said.
Dr Mohan, in his talk, said it is necessary to unbundle the safety aspect of a vehicle from the trim, a topic that should ideally be debated by OEMs but this being a conference for the tyre and rubber users, it’s a message that participants should hopefully take beyond this forum. He made the strong claim (and not all agreed) that advertisements by carmakers never broach the all-important safety issue and said that, like Volvo, carmakers could be more proactive on safety issues and actually lead from the front.
Other observations that the professor made include the fact that India needs to focus on braking technologies simply because most people killed in accidents are not in the car but those outside. Most importantly, he said that the Indian government is working to establish a road safety agency whose head will report to a cabinet minister. His final flourish was that in a decade “India will have an urban car and an inter-city car”.