AKRON—InterEuropean S.r.l., the Como, Italy-based tire and rubber machinery manufacturer, exhibited its products for the first time in the U.S. at the International Tire Exhibition & Conference in Akron.
InterEuropean is seeking customers in the U.S. and plans to establish a U.S. technical center once it has signed enough contracts, according to Vladislav Tsoupikov, InterEuropean founder and CEO.
Since its founding in 2003, InterEuropean has supplied Europe and Russia with a wide range of tire building machines, splicing and cutting machines, air springs, carcass building systems and other equipment, all from a specialized group of companies in northern Italy, according to Tsoupikov.
InterEuropean's group of companies offer a complete cycle of design, manufacturing and customer service, he said.
InterEuropean's latest product is a uni-stage tire building machine that combines the first and second stages of tire building and allows flexibility in tire construction and design, Tsoupikov said.
“We offer uni-stage machines with an output of more than 2,000 tires per day,” he said.
Among other products, InterEuropean also offers a fully automatic bead apexing line that integrates bead apexing into tire building and includes robots for loading and unloading beads, according to Tsoupikov.
“The bead apexing line allows owners to install a complete set of beads for 2.5 million tires a year with just five operators,” he said.
InterEuropean's pricing is much more competitive in the tire machinery market than other European producers, Tsoupikov said.
The company has long been a fixture in the European and Russian markets, and plans to expand into North and South America, he said. However, InterEuropean will wait a while before entering the Asian market, he said.
“Right now, China is a rough market for tire machinery,” Tsoupikov said. “But India would be an interesting market, and so would Japan.”