Tire Business, an industry journal, estimated earlier this month that sales of the Michelin brand had risen last year to 10percentt of the North American passenger tire-replacement market from 9percentt, making the brand second only to Goodyear, with 16percentt.
"They are sticking better for commercial tires than for consumer passenger tires," he said, "so you can't cover all of the raw material increases through price increases".
By far the greatest part of the company's business is devoted to passenger tires, but it also manufactures tires for trucks and buses, farm vehicles, industrial equipment, and aircraft, as well as producing industrial rubber, chemical, and plastic products.
"The truck industry X-rays 100percentt of their tires, but the margins aren't in passenger tires to be able to X-ray each one," said Ted Neuhaus, a tire consultant at Laser Technology Inc. in Norristown, Pa.
BIG products include passenger tires, light truck tires, truck & bus tires and agricultural tires.
Will the passengers tire of the onboard gadgets, the bowling alley, the swimming pool or the dining suite?
Boeing sniffs at this, arguing that passengers, tired of hubs, will want more direct "point-to-point" flights, for which giant jumbos will be uneconomic.
Though many replacement tires are sold -- 184 million passenger car tires and 30.5 million light-truck tires in the United States in 1998 alone -- tires are an enigma to most people.
None of these technologies are going into a passenger car tire anytime soon, though, so drivers still need to remember to pump it up.
