23 new factories added worldwide

The tire identification number (TIN) printed on the side of the tire is an important public notice for tire companies. It can be regarded as the birth information of the tire - the factory where it was "born", the specifications and the date (which year and which week) are directly marked.

Based on this information, we can also see the latest situation of the tire industry. For example, the DOT code represents the latest situation of the tire industry factory. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued 23 new factory identification codes, and 23 factories were added worldwide. Among them, 12 new factories belong to Chinese tire companies.

01 New Factory Inventory
080: This code is assigned to Armstrong ZE Private Limited in Pakistan. The factory has built a new tire factory in Garo, Sindh Province, Pakistan.

The investment amount of the factory is US$92 million, and the nameplate production capacity is 1.4 million passenger car and light truck tires per year. The company was originally owned by Pirelli and was acquired by Zafco Group Holdings, a tire dealer in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 2012.

In 2016, the company launched a series of Armstrong brand truck tires in North America.

07P: This code is given to the U.S. plant of Borrachas Vipal Nordeste, a Brazilian retread tire manufacturer. The company already operates seven retread tire plants, six in Brazil and one in Madison, Tennessee, USA.

08B: This is the code for the 6 million sets of new energy, high-performance special industrial and civilian tires project of Yishimai (Jiangsu) New Materials Technology Co., Ltd. located in Lianyungang, Jiangsu.

07R: The code for Shandong Haohua's tire factory in Vietnam. In 2023, Haohua will open another overseas factory in Vietnam. The production capacity is planned to produce 12 million passenger car tires and 2.4 million truck and bus tires per year. Haohua Tire Vietnam Factory will be put into production in 2024.

Shandong Haohua currently has three factories in China, with a total nameplate capacity of 5 million truck and bus tires and 20 million passenger car tires per year.

084: Xinyang Factory, which belongs to Henan Guilun Tire. The company is a Chinese tire manufacturer that mainly produces off-road tires, agricultural forklift tires and light truck tires, with brands such as Qicheng, Jinhu and Xinyun.

07U: The 07U code is assigned to Xinyang Shunyu Industrial Co., Ltd. in Henan. The company's headquarters mainly produces aluminum products. It seems that another "foreign monk" is trying to get a piece of the tire business.

08C: iMotor Industry FZE. This is a motorcycle tire factory being built in Nigeria. The factory is located in the iMotor Motorcycle Parts Industrial Park in Ogun, Nigeria. It is the first phase of iMotor's $1 billion plan to build the largest motorcycle and parts production and processing industrial park in Africa. It is reported that the factory has been put into production with a rated daily production capacity of 40,000 motorcycle tires and 100,000 inner tubes.

07M: Iris Truck Tire Factory affiliated to Setif, Algeria. This is the factory code for the second phase project of the only tire manufacturer in Algeria. The company, owned by Saterex Iris E.u.r.l., began producing passenger car tires in 2019. The new plant, located in Setif, about 180 miles east of Algiers, will produce truck and bus tires.

07X: Belongs to the factory of Jiangsu Anruichi Technology Co., Ltd. in Wuxi, Jiangsu. The production capacity is not clear at present, but it was recently reported that it has obtained a patent called "an automatic pasting device for silent cotton on the inner wall of tires".

08D: This code is licensed to Jianxin Tire's truck and bus tire factory in Cangzhou, Fujian Province, China. It is reported that the factory also has a retread tire business and has been involved in tire recycling projects. 085: Belongs to India's Overseas Strategic Consulting Private Limited. But the company did not provide more information about tire production.

07N: Given to a tire factory in Maju, Selangor, Malaysia, but no detailed information.

086: It is the code for Zhongce Rubber's tire factory in Indonesia, which was officially put into production on December 18, 2024.

Zhongce Rubber Indonesia MTI was established in January 2024 and is the second overseas company invested by Zhongce Rubber Group. Under the background of the "Belt and Road Initiative", the company plans to invest US$280 million. The company covers an area of ​​49.2 hectares, mainly involving truck and bus tires, two-wheel tires, bias tire inner tubes, crawler tracks and other products, as well as carbon black production lines and exhaust gas co-production projects. After reaching full production, the annual sales are expected to be about 5.2 billion yuan.

081: It is the factory code of Sailun in Demark, Java, Indonesia. The rated annual production capacity of the factory is 3 million passenger car tires, 600,000 truck and bus tires, and 37,000 tons of off-road tires.

07W: It belongs to Senqilin's new factory in Tangier, Morocco. The factory can achieve large-scale production capacity this year, and can achieve a capacity supply of 6 to 8 million tires throughout the year; in 2026, with the commissioning of the second phase project, the factory can achieve a full 12 million tires.

083: It belongs to the Qingdao factory of Shandong Kaixuan Tire Co., Ltd. The company currently has two major brands, Gree and Lanyu, and can produce truck, bus, passenger car and agricultural tires.

087: Rizhao Kaishun Tire Co., Ltd.'s motorcycle tire and inner tube manufacturing plant in Rizhao City.

07V: Shandong Xida Rubber Technology Co., Ltd.'s tire factory in Weifang.

07T: Shandong Youyue Rubber's factory code in Weifang, Shandong. The total investment of the factory is 5.16 billion yuan, and the planned production capacity is 12 million sets of semi-steel tires and 3 million sets of full-steel tires per year.

088: Indian tire company Rudrapur TVS Srichracha Co., Ltd.'s factory in Uttarakhand, India. The company produces two-wheel and off-road tires under the TVS Eurogrip, Eurogrip and TVS brands.

07Y: Qingdao Xinyang Rubber Co., Ltd. Qingdao factory code. The company mainly produces solid wheels and inner tubes.

08D: Qingdao Hengxiang Industrial Products Co., Ltd.'s factory in Qingdao. According to the official website, the factory was founded in 1998. It is an old-fashioned enterprise integrating design, research and development, manufacturing and custom production. It mainly produces tires for trolleys and motorcycles.

082: Factory code of Zhucheng Guoxin Rubber Co., Ltd. This company was founded in 2009 and produces motorcycle, ATV and bicycle tires under the brands of Highrover, Kingswood and VGood. It can be seen that these newly obtained DOT code tire companies are still mainly concentrated in Shandong, China. The pattern of "the world looks to China for tires, and China looks to Shandong for tires" has not changed.

02 Tire manufacturing must be compliant
Obtaining a DOT code only means that the company can sell tires in the US market. These tires sold in the United States are subject to random testing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and if the tires do not meet federal standards, they will be punished.

According to agency documents, tires found to be non-compliant will be recalled, and manufacturers of non-compliant tires will face civil penalties of up to $27,168 (RMB 198,100), and any related series of violations can be up to $135.3 million (RMB 987 million).

In 2015-2016, the DOT code changed the tire plant ID process to a three-digit alphanumeric code after determining that the two-digit system up to that time was not sufficient to handle the expected increase in demand. The two-digit code is reportedly valid until 2025.

To simplify the upgrade process for plants with two-digit codes, the DOT created new codes by adding the number "1" in front of the existing code, except in a few cases. The exception to this practice is those codes that contain "G", "S" or "Q", for example, because S can be misread as 2 or G and Q as 0.