Continental announced plans to expand the annual production capacity of its truck and bus tire plant in Puchov, Slovakia, from about 2.6 million tires to more than 3 million tires in coming years, with an investment of 100 million euros.
The exact timing of the capacity increase and investment will depend on the market development and its influence on the customers’ demand for truck and bus tires, according to the tiremaker.
“Despite the currently challenging economic situation in Europe, we see a considerable increased demand for our truck and bus tire business in the mid-term,” said Andreas Esser, head of Continental’s Commercial Vehicle Tires business unit. “With the exploration especially of the growth markets in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, we foresee further potential in the years to come. In order to accommodate this rising demand in the near future, we have to expand and upgrade our largest production plant in EMEA further.”
Puchov, which is Continental’s largest production site for truck and bus tires in EMEA, will not only see an increase in manufacturing capacity, but also extensive upgrades to machinery and infrastructure in order to achieve maximum production efficiency, the tiremaker added.
“Puchov will be the first plant to produce our new Generation 3 bus tires,” said Thierry Wipff, head of manufacturing, Commercial Vehicle Tires. “By this investment, we will increase our agility to follow the market demands.”
