With the rapid development of the mainland's economy, the production and sales of automobiles are booming. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Public Security, China's car ownership has reached 297 million in 2021, surpassing the United States to become the world's largest car ownership country, and by 2023, China's car ownership will reach 336 million, showing a straight upward trend.
The growth of car ownership has driven the strong demand in the tire market. According to statistics, the annual scale of the mainland tire market has exceeded 200 billion yuan, with a sales volume of nearly 400 million pieces, and it is still growing. This undoubtedly provides a large potential user base for self-healing tires, which are special performance tires. In the past two years, with the blessing of multiple advantages, self-healing tires have grown into a huge emerging market.
Enterprises have accelerated the layout of new tracks for self-healing tires
The domestic technology has reached the world's leading level
As a key part of the car, tires will inevitably be punctured by sharp objects such as nails, and in serious cases, tire pressure imbalance will be caused by air leakage, causing tire bursts, resulting in irreparable loss of life and property.
With the segmentation of tire market consumption, car owners have put forward higher requirements for the safety performance of tires, and self-repairing tires with "safety and peace of mind" as the core selling point are showing vigorous market potential.
Compared with traditional tires, a layer of polymer composite rubber is attached to the inner wall of self-healing tires, which can quickly repair the damaged position when the tire is punctured by nails or sharp objects, protect the tire from air leakage and puncture, and reduce traffic accidents caused by tire failure, which is very suitable for consumers' needs for driving safety.
Compared with the air-deficit technology, which has many shortcomings, the self-healing sealant technology does not need to increase the thickness of the tire wall, nor does it need to change the tread pattern and original structural design, and the tire can maintain various excellent performance while ensuring comfort.
Because of its higher safety, comfort and durability, in recent years, foreign tire giants such as Continental, Michelin, Pirelli, Hankook, etc. have begun to focus on the layout of self-healing tires, and continue to develop and apply self-sealing technology, setting off waves of self-healing technology in the tire rim.
Domestic self-repairing tires are also gradually improving their quality and performance through improvements in technology research and development, equipment technology, production organization and management, etc., to reach and surpass the world's advanced level. In addition, compared with the mainstream overseas market, the price of self-repairing tires of Chinese brands is still at a low level, with strong cost performance, showing strong global competitiveness.
Linglong Tire is a leading enterprise in China, and its Seal in self-repair technology principle is to coat the inside of the tire with a layer of polymer nano memory synthetic viscous material, when the vehicle is punctured, Linglong Seal in nano viscous material will automatically cover the foreign matter; When a foreign object is pulled out, this layer of rubber can quickly and automatically fill the tire hole caused by the foreign object, so as to avoid the danger of rapid tire leakage.
Officially launched in the Chinese market in August 2021, Michelin's self-healing tires (Selfseal) use innovative sealant technology and design to spray a specially formulated sealant on the inner inner liner of the tire, when the foreign body penetrates, it can quickly wrap the foreign body under the action of the pressure in the tire, which can cover a large area of the shoulder area, effectively repair about 80% of the screws and about 90% of the nails caused by the diameter of no more than 6 mm and the length of the puncture of no more than 8 cm, and significantly improve the problem of tire pressure loss of automobiles.
Continental's ContiSeal self-repairing technology repairs 92% of punctures, automatically sealing punctured holes when a tire is punctured by an external foreign object with a diameter of 5 mm or less, such as an iron snail, so that the vehicle does not have to stop to the curb for tire replacement. Even if the foreign object is detached from the tire, the punctured hole can still be sealed. Continental has invested a lot in the field of self-repair, and has invested hundreds of millions of yuan in the development and production of self-repairing tires.
From the technical point of view, Everrich is not only one of the drafters of the national standard GB/T38510 for self-healing tires, but also in 2023, as the first drafter, Everrich drafted and formulated another self-healing tire industry group standard, consolidating and enhancing the influence of the industry. In the same year, the world's first self-developed fully automatic disc self-healing tire processing production line was put into operation, with a cumulative shipment of more than 6.8 million tires.
One of Pirelli's four major tyre technologies, SEAL INSIDE™, automatically seals and repairs damaged tyres, and when a tyre is punctured, the sealing material adheres to the foreign object that caused the tyre damage, and if the foreign object is still on the tire, the sealing material forms a sealing isolation ring around the object. When the foreign object is removed, the sealing material will be sucked into the pores left by the foreign object, sealing the edge of the pores. Pirelli's second-generation Cinturato P7 uses self-patching technology, claiming to be truly "permanently repaired".
Goodyear is the largest tire company in North America, and its products are positioned in the mid-to-high-end field of high performance and large size, and its gross profit margin has been in a leading position for a long time. Goodyear has developed self-healing tires and named this technology SealTech, adding a special hybrid barrier layer inside the tire that automatically seals the area of the tread up to 5mm in diameter, preventing a tire from leaking and causing tragedy. Goodyear tires that have been reinforced with self-healing technology have SealTech lettering on the sides.
In addition, many brands such as Dunlop, Bridgestone, Hankook, Kumho and many other brands are engaged in the research and development and production of self-healing tires, which is enough to prove that self-healing tires have a very large market appeal.
The total output of tires in China ranks first in the world
The sales of self-repairing tires for passenger cars exceeded one million
With the implementation of the national standard GB/T38510 for self-healing tires, the self-healing tire industry has further developed and expanded, and has exploded into a strong market vitality.
In 2022, affected by the epidemic, the annual output of tires in the country will be 856 million, a year-on-year decrease of 5%; The annual market sales of tires in the country were 294 million, a year-on-year decrease of 8.9% (data source: National Bureau of Statistics).
However, the segment of passenger car self-repairing tires is growing against the market, with annual sales of about 900,000 pieces, a year-on-year increase of 21.3%, of which Arechi, Continental and Michelin ranked among the top three, respectively 17.5%, 14.8% and 11.4%, accounting for half of the passenger car self-repair tire market.
By 2023, the annual output of mainland tires will increase to 988 million, a year-on-year increase of 15.3%, ranking first in the world; According to the statistics of Zhuochuang Information, the domestic tire sales will reach 393 million in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 20.7%. Among them, the self-repairing tire market for passenger cars remained strong, with annual sales of 1.12 million tires nationwide, a year-on-year increase of 24.4%.
According to the collected and forecast data, the three industry giants of Everis, Continental and Michelin continue to maintain a rapid growth momentum, with market shares of 19.6%, 16.1% and 14.3% respectively; Well-known companies such as Pirelli, Goodyear, and Linglong followed closely behind, with market shares of 13.4%, 11.6%, and 7.1%.
The development of the new energy vehicle industry has entered the fast lane
The demand for self-healing tires is increasing day by day
At the same time, the mainland government attaches great importance to the new energy vehicle and intelligent vehicle industry, which also provides strong policy support for innovative products such as self-healing tires, and provides an important opportunity to improve the brand influence and long-term competitiveness of self-healing tire enterprises.
According to Wind sales data, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in mainland China in 2023 will be 9.489 million units, with a market share of 31.6% and 20.41 million units, a year-on-year growth rate of 55.8%. New energy vehicles have made significant efforts, driving the domestic parts industry, including self-repairing tires, into a new track of rapid development.
Since most new energy vehicles are not equipped with spare tires, self-repairing tires can meet their safety and durability needs, so they have become the preferred choice of manufacturers and car owners. In the past two years, self-healing tires have been successfully integrated into the supporting and replacement systems of ordinary and high-end models of new energy vehicles, and the market scale has been expanding.
For example, BYD Yuan and Xpeng G3 are equipped with Michelin SEFSEAL self-healing tires, and the new NIO ES8 is equipped with German Continental eContact tires, and all models are equipped with ContiSeal self-repair technology as standard. In the replacement market, domestic brands such as Zeta self-healing safety tires provide strong support, so that new energy vehicles no longer have safety worries.
With the in-depth research and development of foreign tire giants and the continuous upgrading of technology and product promotion efforts of mainland enterprises, the self-healing tire industry is becoming more and more mature, which also affects and changes the attitude of channels and terminals, and accelerates the penetration rate of self-healing tire market; In addition, the successive introduction of national standards and industry standards and the improvement of relevant domestic policies are more conducive to expanding the domestic market for self-repairing tires for new energy vehicles, and it is expected to lay a solid foundation for entering the tire supply system of more foreign car companies through large-scale exports.
It is widely used in a variety of fields
The market demand for self-repairing tires has further expanded
With the increasing progress of self-repairing tire technology and the high-quality development of the industry, various market needs have also emerged. Self-repairing tires have appeared in trucks, construction machinery vehicles, agricultural and forestry machinery vehicles, industrial vehicles, aircraft, special vehicles, as well as common electric vehicles and balance vehicles in life.
In a variety of application fields, the head enterprise Anruichi has fully blossomed, and its performance is particularly eye-catching. As a native Chinese brand, Anruichi not only occupies 2% of the market share in the field of self-repairing tires for passenger cars in China, but also is unique in the field of electric motorcycle (including electric scooters), with an annual sales of more than one million and a market share of 90%, and is a long-term cooperative supplier of electric scooters of well-known brands such as Xiaomi, Mavericks, Nine, and Yadea. In the application field of domestic special explosion-proof tires, such as tires for military vehicles, police cars, and fire rescue vehicles, Anruichi has an overwhelming technical advantage.
In general, self-healing tires are growing into a subdivision track with huge potential energy by virtue of their multi-faceted performance characteristics. Although the current self-healing tires account for only about 3‰ of the entire tire market, there is unlimited potential for future changes and development space.
In the past two years, the sales of self-repairing tires have continued to increase, and the growth rate exceeds the sales growth of the entire tire market, and industry experts predict that self-repairing tires are likely to have a blowout growth in the next five years, and the market share is expected to reach 10% of the entire tire market.
The maturity of technology, the further expansion of market demand, the blessing of new energy vehicle outlets, policy support and global layout all indicate that the opportunity for self-repair tires has arrived and the future has come.