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[Title]
A Plastic Tire that May Tread on Industry Giants 
[subtitle]
The new product is said to cut labor costs but the big companies are skeptical.


For three decades tire companies around the world have sought to automate their labor-intensive production by casting tires from plastic. But despite spending millions of dollars on research and development, the molded tire remains elusive. Making tires still requires craftsmen who build the finished product from 20 or so parts-including a rubber core, or carcass, plus belts and tread.

Now amid heavy skepticism, LIM Technologie, a small Austrian plastics company, claims to have succeeded where the giants have failed. If so, it threatens to unsettle the world tire industry. "The cast tire has fascinated everybody in the business,"notes Frederick J. Kovac, vice-president for tire technology at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Popping tires out of molds like doughnuts would slash labor costs, improve uniformity, and cut energy and capital costs.

More For Less. LIM asserts it has developed a polyurethane plastic tire that lasts longer than current radials, boosts gasoline mileage by 10%, and matches the handling and braking characteristics of rubber tires- all at a production cost less than or equal to that of conventional tires. LIM (an acronym for liquid injection molding) is headed by scientist Oskar Schmidt, who played a key part two decades ago in developing processes to use the same type of tough, abrasion-resistant plastic to automate molding athletic shoe soles and, later ski boots.

"We have started production [of tires] on a very small scale." boasts Schmidt, hailed as a genius by admirers and derided as a promoter by critics. Adds Richard Marchiando, a LIM board member and former director of business development at Air Products & Chemicals Inc.: "the tire has got to a point where all it needs is to be engineered into a commercial package. It doesn't need any more invention."

LIM's prototype equipment located at company headquarters in Kittsee, near Vienna, will soon be making urethane tires at the rate of 15,000 per year. Production of car tires is a three-step process: First, the carcass is molded from one polyurethane formulation. Then a reinforcing layer, or belt, is automatically applied. Finally, the tread is molded around the belted carcass, using another urethane compound. LIM has plans to expand capacity to 1 million units annually over the next few years. That is tiny by tire industry standards, but LIM wants this plant to serve as a manufacturing laboratory for ongoing R&D. 

Both Schmidt and Marchiando emphasize that LIM intends to turn to big-volume markets as soon as possible. Their strategy is to set up small, joint-venture tire factories in the US, Europe, and developing countries. Marchiando talks of franchising tire-molding plants like so many fast-food outlets. Because of the small investment required- 5$ million for a system with 18 molds- Schmidt asserts that such operations can be profitable with an output of only 2,000 tires daily even though the cost of polyurethane compounds, at roughly $1 per lb., is double the price of the materials used in radials. By comparison, the capital intensiveness of making rubber tires- plants typically run $200 million or more-mandates a production of roughly 25,000 tires per day.

If LIM's tire is all the company claims, it clearly would revolutionize the world tire industry. Billions of dollars invested in tire plans would be rendered obsolete, as would the facilities that supply them. while Schmidt does not pretend this is imminent, he does envision some companies being eager to produce tires on demand. "A car company can have a molding machine at the end of its assembly line and make tires on the spot says Schmidt. "And a big trucking company can [join us] in a joint venture and produce its own tires."

The big tiremakers are suspicious partly because LIM has made similar claims in the past and partly because their own efforts to mold plastic tires have repeatedly fallen short of commercial standards. More than 20 years ago, Goodyear created a stir with brightly colored, translucent tires. Firestone Tire & rubber Co. has a long sting of patent for cast-tire technology. And B. F. Goodrich Co. signed a technical agreement in 1978 with Polyair Maschinenbau - the company that became LIM after a financial reorganization last year - but has since let that agreement expire. Says an executive at one major European tire manufacturer: "I don't think we will see commercial products for another 10 years.

'Magic Material.'The most critical issue is how well urethane tires wear on the road. In earlier versions even minor skidding would produce flat spots, and the intense heat generated by panic braking would virtually melt the tread. "[In] all the materials in the past, the molecule becomes unzipped, and you're left with a soft, tacky substance," explains Goodyear's Kovac. What tire and chemical companies are looking for, says Barry L. Collier, Goodrich's director of tire technical services, is a "magic material."

The tire makers' unanimous skepticism draws gibes from LIM's Schmidt, who counters that it is based on stale