Ikon masters tire sizes for Chinese vehicles

Ikon Tyres (owned by "Tatneft" and operating on the former facilities of Nokian Tyres in the Leningrad region) has mastered around 15 new tire sizes, primarily for Chinese vehicles, said Nikita Gudkov, deputy chief editor of "Za Rulem", adding that the company's range has included, among other things, the 245/45 R20 size, designed, for example, for large-sized models of the Geely brand.

The plant in Vsevolozhsk currently produces tire analogs of Nokian models (under the Ikon Autograph brand), as well as products under the Finnish brand Nordman (which will be replaced by Ikon Character), and proprietary development tires, according to Gudkov, are expected to appear next year. The plant's capacity of 17 million tires per year, which previously supplied products mainly for export, is currently loaded at around 50%, and, as Gudkov said, the company is working to organize sales abroad, starting with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and then "as it goes".

Not so long ago, Ikon conducted a test drive of its tires for journalists, and a representative of ZR noted that "even the basic Ikon Eco 3 [analog of Nokian Hakka Green 3] holds the road in such a way that it cannot be compared with what Chinese tire manufacturers offer in the "budget" segment".

Perhaps, next year it's not worth waiting for completely new Ikon tires, since the development of tires is a fairly long process, and, as noted by Oleg Rastegaev from "AvtoReview", what technologies and tread patterns the proprietary Ikon Tyres tires will have, "we will find out in three years, when the full cycle of design and experimental work is completed, tests of prototype samples are carried out and certification of new models is passed".