The age of intelligent tyres comes to Brazil

The cipher billionaire involving the acquisition of Sascar by Michelin, announced this month, indicates that the race of technology and offer new services must be fiercer in the tyre market.
The French manufacturer has paid $ 1.6 billion to take the companhia brasileira de vehicle tracking, bringing into the House a technology company applied to the automotive sector.
The bet Michelin is transforming into a provider of solutions for transport and not only tyre manufacturer, a move followed by their competitors.
"With the Sascar, Michelin enters a more digital stage. We will have a more complete offering for carriers and the integration of this technology to our business will enable us to even propose new services, "said the President of Michelin South America, Jean-Philippe Ollier.
Sascar technology for monitoring fleets must be applied to provide information about the tire, such as temperature and pressure. The tire is the second-largest cost of a truck, after the fuel. And half the time that a driver on the road is by tire problems, according to market estimates.
In addition, the quality of the tire influences between 20% and 30% in fuel consumption. "With more information, you can make a better tire management and reduce the cost for carriers," explained Ollier.
The Pirelli also allied himself with the it industry to offer new services. In November 2012, the company introduced a system of constant monitoring of temperature and pressure of tires of trucks, called Cyber Fleet, in partnership with the Autotrac, the competitor company and Sascar among shareholders formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet.
In all, 20 fleet owners use the service-the tire and the chip that goes inside it are sold, while the data monitoring service is rented. "The tire became a product shipped a lot of technology. It's not a commodity, "said commercial Director of Pirelli in South America, Vicente Marino.
Complete package
By bringing a technology company for indoors, Michelin prepares to offer a "full service" in the transport sector.
In some countries in Europe and the United States, the company offers customers the sale of tire per mile run and not per unit.
Namely, the company closes a price per kilometer and assumes the responsibility of doing all the tire changes as needed.
In South America, Michelin's forehead that model of cost per kilometer in the supply of tires for mining machines in Brazil and Chile. "We can sell less tires, but earn more by improving the performance of the product."
The provision of services by the tire manufacturers was an alternative to the big brands found to escape from a dispute solely by price.
In the past decade, large manufacturers like Michelin, Bridgestone, Pirelli and Goodyear were focused on trade sales to automakers, betting that the owners of vehicles would keep the original in trade brand of tire.
"With the competition with the imported, the price difference has become relevant and customers have tested other brands," said Robert Wieselberg (nee Wohl) consultant, partner at Mindpartners, focused on business strategy.
The competition brought a price competition and the business of making and selling tires began to yield lower margins. "The major manufacturers reacted with the focus on technology and services offerings," said the Coordinator of the Center for research in strategy of Insper, Luiz Fernando Turatti.
Goodyear invested $ 100 million to install in 2008 in its factory in Brazil a machine capable of delivering standardized tires, patented by the company and available in just three countries.
From there to here, spent over $ 250 million in innovation in the country.
According to the marketing manager for the area of commercial tires, Fábio Garcia, the company has invested to improve the performance of the tire and betted on creativity to establish and communicate it to the customer.
The company launched this year in Brazil six applications for the iPhone and mobile phones with Android system with technical information, customer testimonials and various comparatives.
In these applications, the driver can calculate, for example, as fuel-saving in litres and in Brazilian Reals, using the brand name tire. The information is from the newspaper O Estado de s. Paulo.