A successful tire launch seems to fall somewhere in the middle of innovation, customer satisfaction and dealer support. By that account, Hankook Tire seems to have followed the tire launch playbook to the letter with the recent debut of its all-season touring tire, the Dynapro HPX, designed for SUVs.
According to Rob Williams, president of Hankook Tire America Corp., the R&D that went into the Dynapro HPX focuses on following the latest SUV trends while leaning into attributes that will meet the needs of a variety of drivers.
“I think we all know that the SUV segment has grown immensely in the last 10 years. When SUVs first came out, it was really looked upon as more of an off-road type vehicle. Today, SUVs have become the family vehicle,” Williams says. “Maybe you take it off-road when you go camping, but we found out that consumers have a wide range of needs and that’s where we had to look to ensure that we had products to meet all the different needs of those SUV owners. I’m going to say that today the HPX and the AT2 Xtreme are definitely our bestsellers for most of the consumers to drive SUVs.”
In this episode of What’s Treading, we hear about the nitty-gritty details surrounding Hankook’s Dynapro HPX tire, with Williams highlighting key features and new technology. Williams also discusses the value of the company’s tire test track in Korea, dealer support initiatives and the state of the supply chain in regard to dealers in the North American market.
