Vroom Canada! Understanding Canada’s Tire Manufacturing Industry
by Zachary Perlmutter
Since its inception in the late-19th Century, the car, or horseless carriage, has benefitted significantly from its wheels being used to transport people from place-to-place. In particular, the most-essential part of the wheel has always been the tire. Using its ability to grip the ground in order to gain traction, tires contain many critical elements of production and innovation that make them an essential part of the car-making process. Specifically, its manufacturing process has allowed for great progress on that front. And nowhere is this more apparent than, surprisingly, the Canadian tire industry. In fact, the Canadian tire industry is the unsung hero of this picture, and it’s impressive what the industry does despite not being well-known to most people.
It’s worth noting how valuable the tire industry really is in Canada. In 2023, it was pegged at roughly $6.5 billion, and it’s projected to grow to $9.6 billion by 2030 at a rate of 5.8% annually. If that’s not impressive enough on its own, the industry also produces roughly 26 million tires a year. The latter isn’t an exact figure, as it’s hard to extract an accurate estimate, but considering the wide ranges and sizes of these tires, especially given the demand for larger ones in recent years, that alone makes the Canadian tire industry the unsung hero of the road! This is despite most Canadians not even being aware of its impact outside of purchasing cars to drive on the road.
The uniqueness of the tire industry can be seen directly from the creation of the tires themselves. Using a combination of synthetic and organic rubber saps and oils, the tires are carefully and precisely molded over a span of hours before being shaped, welded and stamped for branding and traction. Considering that different tires are used for different terrains and seasons, each tire has to be finely tuned to meet the needs of the consumer at a given time. For Winter tires specifically, additional traction is required to prevent the car from slipping and veering out of control on snow and ice. To that end, Toyo Tires has promoted using cured walnut shells in their Winter tires for traction, a feature that they’ve even demonstrated repeatedly in their TV commercials.
Another feature of the tire industry that makes it so fascinating involves the way in which old tires are recycled when they’re no longer useful. Since rubber doesn’t decompose so quickly, it can become an environmental hazard if left in a conventional landfill. To that end, there have been methods used to make disposing of and even reusing tires more ecologically-efficient. These include using leftover tire pieces to pave playgrounds and parks, or even, in a radically new option, using parts of tires to pave over highways in some parts of the world. Because tires are as flexible as they are durable, they can expand and contract to the weight of oncoming cars without cracking, which is often a problem with concrete-paved roads. It keeps the cost of road maintenance down significantly, and it’s something that more developers, even in Canada, could benefit from adopting as standard.
Car tires can come in a variety of different types. The most-obvious are All-Season and Summer tires, with Winter tires being more well-known in colder, harsher climates. However, there are also Touring tires, Performance tires and Highway tires, the latter of which are usually reserved for trucks and SUVs because of their weight and constant traversing of highways. While the types of tires vary and are case-specific, it’s good to know which brands are reliable for which types of tires. In Canada, reliable companies like Michelin and Goodyear are a safe bet, though there are other brands that are equally as effective should you prefer them. Many of these tires can even be found at places like Canadian Tire outlets across the country. And hey, you can even do some shopping at these stores for household essentials while you’re at it!
But arguably the biggest challenge behind tires in Canada, aside from obvious one of maintenance, is that of climate change. As the global atmospheric temperature increases each year, and Winter/Summer conditions change rapidly, car tires will have to adapt. On one hand, the decrease in snow and Winter-like conditions across the country will cause Winter tires to become obsolete, which will take a financial drain on that subset of the tire industry despite people believing the opposite. On the other hand, the hotter Summers and rising sea temperatures will force Summer tires to have to adapt to hotter and more humid roads and terrains. Even those tires meant for mountainous terrains will have to adapt to wetter conditions, posing a real challenge for the industry not seen before. And let’s not forget the billions of dollars that’ll have to go into adjusting tire treads and features for the uncertain future, including the massive amounts of CO2 emissions (approximately 3300 tonnes annually) that the industry regularly produces, even as it’s promised to reduce it roughly 40% by the year 2030.While the changes of the industry remain uncertain, especially given the globally evolving economy, the need for the manufacturing of tires for cars will remain constant. Even with the possibility of flying cars existing in the future, which shouldn’t ever be ruled out, the tire will most-likely still be needed, but be adjusted to meet newer conditions. Like the wheel itself, from which it gets both its shape and inspiration, the car tire doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. It’s simply adapting and evolving to meet our everchanging needs, and that’s reflected in the way in which the manufacturing of tires, particularly those tires made in Canadian plants, will continue to operate going forward. It’s inevitable.
