JK Tyre launches specialised product range, sees demand from EV, SUVs

Company launches smart tyres that give real-time updates about pressure, temperature and punctures to phone app

Tyres that give electric vehicles (EV) a longer run on a single charge by reducing resistance: JK Tyre is betting there is a market for such specialised products.

The company on Friday launched low-resistance tyres for EVs; it also introduced smart tyres that give real-time updates about pressure, temperature and punctures to a driver’s mobile phone app.

It is in talks with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for Ranger HPe tyres meant for EV customers. The Ranger X-AT tyres, designed to handle extreme terrains, are made for the SUV segment of the passenger car market.

Anuj Kathuria, president (India) at JK Tyre & Industries said the industry focus is on making fuel-efficient engines, but tyres can too can help. “This becomes more relevant as the adoption of EVs increases. In an EV either one can reduce the dead-weight (batteries are a large part of EV weight) or one can overcome the rolling resistance,” Kathuria said.

Its smart tyres have sensors that will send alerts to a driver’s mobile app in case the temperature or pressure is beyond safety limits or there is a puncture. These sensors will be made by Treel, a subsidiary of JK Tyres.

Kathuria said that any JK Tyre can be retrofitted to be converted into a smart tyre. The cost of changing four tyres of a vehicle into sensor-fitted smart tyres would cost around Rs 3,000.

JK sells around 300,000 passenger car tyres in the replacement market every month. If light trucks and some other vehicles are are included the number expands to 700,000 units every month, Kathuria said.

The company will launch a smart tyre variant for commercial vehicles (CVs) to track location with GPS. It is working with large fleet owners for this product.

It had earlier launched puncture-guard tyres that fix on their own. These specialised tyres form 2-3 per cent of JK Tyres' sales.

JK Tyre, which has 18-20 per cent of the market share, is investing in brownfield expansion and will be investing Rs 900 crore for expanding capacity over the next two years. The investment will result in increasing the capacity by 13 per cent in passenger vehicle tyres. It has 12 manufacturing sites: nine in India and three in Mexico.