Apollo Tyres to Open Test Track in Finland

Indian company Apollo Tyres will open an outdoor tire testing facility in Ivalo, Finland, which will be built as part of a long-term cooperation agreement with the UTAC organization. The new facility beyond the Arctic Circle will feature individually designed infrastructure and tracks created specifically for testing winter and all-season tires in real-world conditions.

Apollo notes that the new center will be created taking into account all current and expected technical and legal standards in the field of tire development and will allow reducing the time for creating new products and accelerating their release to the market. The new facility will test tires under the Apollo and Vredestein brands, and the manufacturer states that by combining tests in one specialized center, it will be able to increase their efficiency and also reduce the burden on the environment.

According to Daniele Lorenzetti, Apollo's Technical Director, the new strategic investments will increase the company's autonomy and flexibility. "Thanks to the new center, which will be fully dedicated to our needs at the UTAC facility, we will eliminate bottlenecks, increase our economic efficiency, be able to control the testing schedule ourselves, and provide our specialists with the opportunity to test Apollo and Vredestein tires on their own terms, which is especially important during the critically important winter season," he said.

The new facility is expected to be fully operational by December 2025 and will immediately begin to be used in tire development.