Vitoria

“Here we all know someone who works at Michelin. Most stay but others go to Valladolid for a few years, others to Lasarte… others even come and go to Lasarte, although less so.” Five minutes of chatting with colleagues from the local press is enough to confirm the impact of Michelin in Vitoria, a company that directly employs 3,500 people. The province is the most industrialized in Spain. The city seems chiseled by the idealists of sustainable mobility. The facilities of Michelin and the city center are separated by 15 minutes by bus, “it would have taken eight minutes by tram,” another of the colleagues who attended the presentation points out. It almost sounds like a joke, a city where a good part of the direct and indirect jobs are created by Mercedes and Michelin has experienced a reconversion that is the envy of Spain and an example in Europe. Before, Michelin tires that they manufactured themselves passed through their urban area. Now too, but bicycles ride them and not cars. Those same cars that will soon be able to wear the Michelin Primacy 5 Energy and the Michelin Pilot Sport 5 Energy, the two premium compounds that the French company will soon launch. The first are already beginning to be manufactured in Vitoria. The seconds have not yet been awarded but the Basque plant is one of the best positioned. Tires with a chip and million-dollar figures 60 years have passed since Michelin opened the doors of its factory in Vitoria. So, on the outskirts of the city. Today, the avenue that leads to its facilities is a continuous flow of cyclists who ride calmly between well-designed bike lanes. Vitoria does not have much to envy of Amsterdam. In fact, to live there, nothing to envy if we take into account the tourist explosion of the dutch city. “How are you able to live in a nice city?” I joke with the locals longing for a fraction of the photograph I have in front of my eyes for Madrid. That’s where we are when we cross the doors and Bibendum greets us next to a gigantic tire. It is by no means the largest manufactured there. The latter weighs 5.7 tons. The one in front of us will only weigh a couple of them. But this time we have not come to learn about heavy transport tires. This time we are here to learn about Michelin’s new premium compounds. The Primacy 5 Energy are already manufactured in Vitoria and if everything goes as it should, 200,000 tires will be manufactured before the end of 2026. The Michelin Pilot Sport 5 Energy, at the moment, are being finalized but in a few months they will begin to be manufactured here or in any other plant that the company has throughout Europe. In both cases they are summer tires but with clearly different approaches. The latter are designed for sports cars and more aggressive driving. As an example, the performance of its prototype version during the test that Mercedes carried out with its Mercedes Concept AMG GT XX in Italy: a week at more than 300 km/h without rest. With extraordinary results, it must be said. 25 world records broken in one fell swoop. Those that are manufactured are the Primacy 5 Energya tire that replaces the e-Primacy, which was a range designed to improve consumption without sacrificing performance. According to the company, these tires are now quieter, improving braking by 8% both new and with used rubber. And, they defend, they offer 30% better grip than their main rival. Of course, it was not revealed who they consider to be the main competitor. What is irrefutable is that the tire has earned a triple A on the efficiency label used by the European Union to determine the performance of rubber. That is, it has obtained the best grade in the wet grip, consumption and noise tests. To reach our cars, the manufacturing of these tires begins within the Vitoria plant. There, the company shapes the rubber as if it were kneading industrial bread. The materials are crushed and heated until they are malleable enough to cover the first layers of the tire. A structure that also uses textile fibers to give rigidity to the final product. The process progresses between robots and operators who are mere spectators at best. Its function is to control that the highly mechanized process works correctly and that the type of compound that a central unit requires is manufactured at all times, anticipating a possible stock out. Between robots and conveyor belts, the rubber bands advance and are structured. Step by step they reach the coating with the outer rubber, the layer that treads on the ground. A very high temperature firing process reveals the final design. It is time to let it cool and check with machines that apply thousands of light flashes if the quality is correct. The last workers check with their hands and eyes that everything has gone as it should. It is the most artisanal part of the production. The most digital one occurs in between. The company is already including small chips in its wheels in RFID format. At the moment they only have detailed information on the type of compound and its dimensions. Manufacturers only need one reading device to store the rubber bands correctly in the shortest possible time. This novelty is not a whim of the company. We must remember that Europe’s intention is to get serious about wheel contamination so it could be used to control the traceability of the product. In the absence of defining the latter, what is certain, they explain to us, is that in 2029 all tires sold must have this system. Vitoria aspires to become the first factory in the world to implement these chips in all manufactured tires this year. If this happens, eight million tires will leave their doors with this control system. And this is the … Read more