Nokian announces €160m US tire plant expansion

Dayton, Tennessee – Nokian Tyres has announced a $174-million (€161 million) expansion project to double capacity at its passenger car tire production facility in Dayton.

The project will add light truck tires to Dayton’s production mix in 2023, in addition to the existing all-season and all-weather tires, which have been Nokian’s ‘epicentre of growth’ in North America.

The investment also involves the construction of a 600,000-units capacity warehouse on-site and the addition of 75 new jobs at the factory, the Finnish tire maker announced 11 Jan.

Nokian said it decided to carry out the expansion as the four-year-old facility was reaching its full capacity of four million tires per year.

“The factory set production records with existing equipment in 2022, and the company has begun installing additional infrastructure inside the factory to meet its goal of producing up to 4 million tires per year [by] 2024,” Nokian stated.

The project follows Nokian’s decision to restructure its production operations following a planned exit from Russia, where it produced more than 30% of its passenger car tires.

Furthermore the tire maker is advancing efforts to increase production, in Europe with the construction of a €650-million tire plant in Romania and in China with a recent contract manufacturing deal with Sentury Tire.

The new warehouse, set for operation by mid-2024, will be connected to the factory and will join the company’s nine-warehouse network throughout the US and Canada.

Nokian opened the North American production facility in 2019 and began producing tires there for commercial use in January 2020.

The company currently employs approximately 350 workers at the plant and expects the number to grow to 475 by the end of 2023.