Tires for electric cars and speed records: Giti intends to return to the top 10 tire manufacturers in the world
In September 2025, the electric hypercar Yangwang U9 Xtreme from the Chinese auto giant BYD accelerated to 496.22 km/h at the ATP test site in Papenburg, Germany, breaking the record set six years ago by Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+, and becoming the fastest production car in the world. A month earlier, the U9X also drove a lap around the "North Loop" of the famous "Nürburgring" - a 21-kilometer track known for its 300-meter elevation changes and over 70 turns - in less than seven minutes, setting a record for electric vehicles.
Yangwang weighs 2.5 tons and is equipped with four electric motors, each capable of spinning up to 30,000 rpm, producing a total power of over 3,000 horsepower, and to withstand these extreme loads, special ultra-high-performance tires were developed, for the creation of which the Singaporean company Giti was responsible, which intends to further strengthen its position in the electric vehicle tire segment.
The Giti GitiSport e.GTR2 Pro tires on which the new records were set are the result of more than two decades of investment in scientific research, writes Forbes, citing the words of Enki Tan, the 57-year-old executive chairman of Giti, a doctor who became the head of the tire manufacturer. Tan began working at Giti in 2003, getting a job at the company's Chinese division, and now the brand is present in more than 130 countries around the world.
According to Tyrepress, in 2024, Giti ranked 15th in the list of the world's largest tire manufacturers in terms of sales, which amounted to $3.1 billion. The company is now capable of producing up to 100 million tires for passenger cars, motorcycles, trucks, and buses, the production of which is carried out at five plants: three in China and one in the USA and Indonesia (in the latter country, Giti began its history). According to Tan, the company is now ready to move to a new level and return to the top ten global tire manufacturers, in which the company was briefly present in the mid-2010s. The task is not easy, and it will be necessary to overtake, for example, the Chinese Sailun, which produces up to 140 million tires per year with a revenue of $4.9 billion.
According to Tan, Giti's technological capabilities will be a key factor in attracting new customers. "Just building plants and promoting products on the market - this approach no longer works," he said. "Only those brands that invest in development, expand their presence in target markets, and cooperate with key partners will survive."
Over the past five years, Giti has invested over $2 billion in research and development, which also went into the creation of modern production lines for the production of tires for passenger and commercial vehicles that meet increasingly stringent requirements. In addition to key parameters, such as safety and durability, attention is paid to such aspects as energy efficiency and monitoring the condition of tires using built-in sensors, which, as Tan said, can track eight characteristics from pressure and temperature to wear.
About 800 engineers working in research centers in China, Germany, Indonesia, and the USA are engaged in the creation of Giti tires. "Most people don't understand what tires are," says Tan. "They tell me: 'Hey, it's so easy to make them. Just pour rubber into a mold and that's it.' In fact, it's not that simple at all."
More than 30 variants of tires were prepared for the U9X hypercar, and Yang Feng, the head of the scientific department at Yangwang, notes that "for setting world records in both top speed and lap time in the case of a car with such extreme characteristics, close cooperation with the tire supplier is crucial."
Giti and BYD have been cooperating for more than 20 years, so the company was an "obvious choice" for the project, says Yang, adding that the jointly developed tires use heat-resistant fibers with increased tensile strength, which increases stability at high speeds. "Even the slightest unevenness or tire wear can significantly affect speed and safety," he points out.
Tan says that the joint project with BYD has become a test of Giti's capabilities, which confirmed that "we can produce products whose characteristics far exceed the level required for everyday use. Can you imagine the forces that arise when cornering at 300 km/h?"
Tires for electric vehicles must have higher load indices (electric vehicles are heavier than conventional ones), reduced rolling resistance (it is necessary to increase the range between charges), and a tread pattern designed to enhance traction and reduce noise, and Tan notes that the focus on producing tires of this category with the aim of strengthening positions has come "just in time". The number of electric vehicles on the roads is growing every year, and according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), last year they accounted for about 20% of global car sales, while a year earlier this figure was 18%. China has become the largest market for electric vehicles, including due to government subsidies, where more than 11 million electric vehicles were sold, which is two-thirds of global sales.
According to Tan, over the past decade, the production of tires for electric vehicles has become the fastest-growing and most promising direction for Giti. According to Giti's recent application to the Singapore Stock Exchange regarding the placement of bonds worth $579 million, more than half of the cars that the company supplies are electric. As Giti says, such success in the EV segment has become possible, among other things, due to the fact that more than 20 years ago an agreement was signed with Chery on the supply of tires for the popular compact QQ City.
"We have been selling tires for electric vehicles... since the beginning of their production in China," says Tan, adding that "thanks to a fortunate combination of circumstances" in 2010, Giti concluded its first contract for the supply of tires for electric vehicles from BYD, which became the development of a seven-year partnership with the company, which initially purchased tires for vehicles with internal combustion engines. Now Giti is a supplier to many Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers, such as Geely, Xpeng, and NIO.
According to David Shaw, CEO of the consulting company Tire Industry Research, the focus on expanding the presence in the Chinese electric vehicle tire market may become a key to Giti's future success on a global scale. "I think Giti will achieve its goal of entering the top ten global tire manufacturers," he noted. "The question is just how long it will take them."
Shaw adds that currently, leading tire companies such as Michelin, Bridgestone, Goodyear, and Continental are ceding market share to other players, including Giti, Hankook, and Yokohama, whose "high-tech factories are capable of producing high-quality tires at relatively low costs". Giti's goal of entering the top ten leading tire manufacturers is "quite achievable, as major players are experiencing difficulties," he says.
Giti pays great attention to increasing brand recognition, and, for example, this year the company equipped the electric van Volkswagen ID. Buzz with GitiSynergy H2 tires, which in September started a journey of 80,000 km through 75 countries. The goal of the expedition is to set a new Guinness World Record for visiting the most countries in one trip by electric vehicle, and only one set of tires will be used, which should become another serious test for Giti's products. "The company is sending a clear signal about the high level of its technologies," notes Shaw.
Tan, who grew up in Kuala Lumpur (he is still a citizen of Malaysia), says that he has always been interested in cars. His family owned a car repair shop, but his interest in biology led Tan to study medicine at the University of Sydney. After graduating from university in 1992, he worked as an anesthesiologist in hospitals in Australia, Hong Kong, and Malaysia for the next six years, before changing his career path and receiving an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2000.
According to him, his experience in both industries helps him in his work. "In medicine, it's always important to find the root cause of the problem," he says. "In business, you also need to know the root cause. If it's unknown, you're just treating the symptoms, and the company won't grow because the underlying problem hasn't been solved."
A few years after joining Giti, Tan, then executive director of international sales, began meeting with representatives of automakers in Asia, Europe, and the US to offer them tires. Although the original equipment (OE) segment is smaller than the secondary tire market, Yash Agarwal, an analyst at India's Nirmal Bang Securities, says that it opens up more long-term opportunities for tire companies, as it allows them to cooperate with automakers and lay the foundation for selling high-margin tires to end-users.
Tan recalls lengthy negotiations with a major German automaker. The homologation process took years and required frequent checks to ensure that the products met strict standards, and "winning the trust of one major manufacturer opens doors for building relationships with other partners". "When you see a car, the only brand you notice, apart from the car brand itself, is the tire brand," he says. "Therefore, it is automatically associated with the car brand, and they must be confident that you can fulfill all your obligations."
Since 2005, Giti has been supplying tires to the US, one of the world's largest tire markets, and in 2017, the company opened a plant and a research center in the state of South Carolina, which is considered the center of American automobile manufacturing. Currently, Giti produces about 5 million tires in the US per year, which is a quarter of the tires the company sells in the country (the rest is imported from Indonesia). Tan acknowledges that the US facility cost $560 million more than a similar plant in Asia, but notes that localizing production is a way to strengthen ties with American customers and reduce supply chain risks, and the decision to open the enterprise turned out to be a far-sighted step, given the tariffs that Donald Trump imposed on products from different countries, including China and Indonesia. "The plant was built just in time," says Tan, adding that the opening of the enterprise helps the company expand its presence in the US market.
However, the company has the greatest hopes for the Asian market, in particular, China. In 2024, 31 million vehicles were sold in China, making the country the world's largest auto market, and in the first half of 2025, China accounted for about 44% of Giti's total revenue, followed by Indonesia (26% of revenue). According to Agarwal, the global tire market will grow primarily due to increased sales in the Asia-Pacific region, while Europe and the US are facing difficulties due to rising car prices and high interest rates. According to TechSci Research forecasts, by 2030, the Chinese tire market will almost double compared to 2024 and increase from $55 billion to $102 billion. This is almost half of the world's entire tire market, which is expected to grow to $240 billion by the end of the decade at an average annual growth rate of 11%. Given this trend, in 2025, Giti launched a production line at a new plant in China's Anhui province, which is expected to reach full capacity of 23 million tires per year by 2027.
To get into the top ten tire companies, Giti needs to expand its interaction with leading automakers and strengthen its position in the electric vehicle and crossover/SUV tire segments, notes Agarwal, adding that "only then will they be able to achieve higher growth rates compared to industry averages". Over the past three years, Giti's revenue has grown by an average of 7.6% per year, which the expert calls a "modest figure".
Like other industry participants, Giti faces a number of difficulties, such as a shortage of natural rubber against the backdrop of high demand for this key raw material for the tire industry, as well as increasingly tough competition in the market. Although the cost of rubber futures on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange has fallen slightly since the beginning of the year, over the past five years, prices have risen by 80%, and in general, about half of Giti's revenue over the past three years has been spent on purchasing raw materials such as rubber, nylon, polyester cord, steel wire, and technical carbon.
To mitigate the impact of rising raw material costs, Giti is centralizing procurement, ensuring wholesale prices in a global network of suppliers, rather than individual purchasing, and recently the company also presented a prototype of a tire made from eco-materials, such as recycled rubber and plastic bottles. Optimizing the expense structure is bearing fruit, and in 2024, Giti's net profit grew by more than 80% - from $71 million to $129 million.
Regarding future prospects, Tan says that "improving technologies should keep pace with market development, whose products are getting better and better", however, "you can't just sell a product, you need to effectively serve the customer so that they see your advantages... and trust your brand".
Giti's history began in 1951, when a small bicycle tire manufacturer called Hock Thay Hin was founded in Jakarta. After that, the company changed its name to Gajah Tunggal, and one of the owners was Indonesian magnate Sjamsul Nursalim, the son of a rubber trader (Tan is married to Shery, Nursalim's younger daughter, and the Giti logo with an elephant refers to the Indonesian word "Gajah", which means this animal). Subsequently, the company expanded its activities and began producing tires for motorcycles, and then for passenger and commercial vehicles, as well as other equipment, at its plant in Indonesia, including for companies such as the Japanese Inoue Rubber, with which a strategic alliance was created.
In 1993, Giti Tire (Singapore) was founded, which in the same year entered the Chinese market, investing in the launch of a plant for the production of passenger and commercial vehicle tires in Anhui province. Currently, the company is controlled by the Giti Holdings holding company, which retains a stake in Gajah Tunggal (49.5%). In 2003, Giti acquired 44% of the shares of the Chinese company Hualin Tyre, which was renamed Giti Tire Corp., and in 2004, an agreement was signed on the production of tires for Michelin, which acquired a 10% stake in the company registered in Indonesia. Nursalim is now ranked 29th in the list of the 50 richest Indonesians with a fortune of $2.8 billion.