Hankook Tire

Yeah.

Hankook.

Hankook? Is it Hankook or Hankook? It's actually

Hankook, actually.

Is it

Korean? Yeah, it is.

Like, the name is...

Hankook is just Korea.

Um, the slick one almost looks like a complete slick, like barely any grooves, just like a little bit on the, on the sides.

So it's definitely going to improve performance a lot compared to the Hankook all-weather tyre that we've had for the past few years.

And yeah, the Typhoon tyre looks great as well.

I don't remember the exact numbers that they said it could displace in terms of liters per second, but it looks very...

What tires are you running on

it? The Hankook Ventus V12s.

Okay.

Pretty good.

But what was the top pick for cars and small SUVs?

So for cars and small SUVs, the Hankook Energy XP was a great tire for us in our test.

The way our tire ratings work is to get a high overall score, you have to balance a good array of performance across all these categories, dry and wet braking, handling, hydroplaning resistance, snow and ice traction.

And then, you know, those are all weighted a little bit differently according to how important they are.

So So you'll see tires that do well are at the top of the list.

They have to do well in those safety areas.

So that Hankook tire did well.

You know, as you mentioned, there's a ton of different brands out there now, and you'll see a lot of, even in our ratings, you'll see brands that you maybe never heard of or you didn't think were top competitors, and they're at the top of the list.

Two hot hatches.

alphabetically next to each other perfect nice synergy because these cars fill a gap in the small performance car story that evs haven't filled yet the e208 gti has that 51 kilowatt hour pack that 5.5 seconds 100 kph and peugeot's uk figures also illustrate the importance of the wltp range is 233 miles if you opt for the Hankook tires.

It'll do 219 miles if you don't and you get the standard Michelin tires.

So this is actually a thing that happens in China a lot.

So that's interesting.

Don't hear about too much from that from the European suppliers.

Tick the Hankook box and get more range.

Renault were there with the Twingo, the E-Tech Electric, perhaps the poster boy or poster girl for my thesis today.

They've, they've ...

The city's been involved with, like, some of the stuff in the industrial park with Hankook and that kind of thing.

And I love ...

I've got Hankook tires on my Honda out front.

Like, I, I, I love that they're here.

Uh, I, and, uh, actually I think my oldest son is working at Hankook Tires now.

Um-

Yeah

Yeah.

Um, and last year was the first year with the Hankook tire, and we had to learn a lot first on the road, you know.

Like, um, we didn't really have a lot of data to fall back on.

Um, and I think this tire that we have now, it probably isn't as, um, you know, doesn't allow the same level of performance, um, from the tires that we've had in the past.

I think there's several.

Hankook has done stuff.

Google has done stuff.

And I think, A, it's a great thing that our industries are doing these things.

It, it's been well known for a while in Formula E circles that Formula E was gonna have a new tire supply for Gen Four.

Hankook is out, folks, and in their place comes a rather familiar name, Bridgestone.

Now, they've been along for a very long time.

They've been tire suppliers to Formula One way back up until 2010.

I'd actually love to ask you guys, now that we have, like, a Potenza typhoon tire and the normal Gen 4 tire, do you think there will be more of a strategy element now if there's, like, a dry to wet race or a wet to dry race, and it gives drivers more of a chance, rather than if they just gambled on tire pressures like they did with in the Gen 3?

I don't know, 'cause obviously I don't know how well the technology, um, is implemented in terms of changing tires in Formula E, right? 'Cause obviously that probably usually takes a while.

And obviously when we had, for example, um, Tokyo last season, like you said, there was a lot of, um, tire pressure differences instead of having tire changes, because obviously Hankook, the Hankook tire was, um, supposed to be all weather, an all-weather tire.

Mm-hmm.

[upbeat music] What's up, guys? David here, and today I am taking a walk inside Hankook's manufacturing campus in Clarksville, Tennessee.

They invited me out because, well, International Motors has come to present Hankook with its Diamond Supplier Award, the highest supplier recognition International gives.

Okay, awards are a dime a dozen, blah, blah, blah.

No, no, no, no, no, this one is special, and it's worth paying attention to.

This distinction is super rare.

Hankook was one of only seven companies selected across roughly 1,600 of International's direct suppliers based on performance across technology, quality, delivery and cost, and sustainability.

This recognition seems perfectly timed, too, because Hankook is doing a ton of work to build its commercial tire business.

The company is ramping up truck and bus tire production here in Clarksville, eventually adding one million units of annual capacity while preparing to produce tires for International in the United States.