Nokian ramps up US tire factory, set to open Romanian plant

Dayton, Tennessee – Nokian Tyres has completed a ramp-up programme at its US tire plant in Dayton and is set to start up operations at its new ‘zero emissions’ factory in Romania.

The Finnish tire maker opened a new finished goods warehouse at the Tennessee unit earlier this month, marking the completion of a project to increase output from the facility.

Operational since 2020, the US facility has undergone an expansion process to increase production capacity to 4 million units of passenger car tires per annum. (ERJ report)

The facility now employs 500 people and has added production capability for 'North American-specific' all-season and all-weather car tires as well as light truck tires, Nokian said 24 June.

“Nokian Tyres is pursuing growth in North America, and the Dayton factory is the centre of those efforts,” said  Lauri Halme, vice president, passenger car tires.

The finished goods warehouse, adjacent to the factory and spanning 32,500 m2, can hold “hundreds of thousands of tires,” according to Nokian.

Tires are shipped from the warehouse to Nokian’s network of nine warehouses in North America, from which the company serves dealers in the US and Canada.

The Dayton factory, according to Nokian, is the “first LEED v4 Silver-certified tire production building in the world”, with low emissions and high energy efficiency.

The factory is partially powered by solar energy, and onsite solar panels provide three megawatt-hours of energy every year.

Later this year, Nokian aims to open its production facility in Oradea, near the Hungarian border in Romania, the group's statement continued.

The unit is claimed to be “the world’s first zero CO2 emission tire factory” and will have the capacity to produce 6 million units of passenger car tires by 2027. (ERJ report)