Astutus Research has published its July 2026 quarterly update on vehicle kilometres travelled (VKMT) across 26 European countries. VKMT measures the total distance driven by light vehicles, and it underpins demand for fuel, tires and servicing.

Driving Stalled in Q1 and Likely Fell in Q2

• Q1 2026: VKMT grew 0.1%, as a March decline offset gains in January and February.
• Q2 2026: Astutus estimates a decline of just under 1%.
• Full-year 2026: Astutus forecasts growth of 0.2%, against 1.3% before the conflict. The gap equals around 45 billion VKMT.

Fuel Prices and Confidence Shape Tire Replacement

Fuel prices remain about 10% above pre-conflict levels. The European Commission has cut its 2026 EU growth forecast to 1.1%. Consumer confidence fell in Q2 and partly recovered in June.

The update compares this episode with earlier crises and shows how each affected tire replacement cycles.

What Is in the Full Report

The eight-page update also covers the H2 2026 outlook, public transport trends, and the methodology and data sources for every country. Open the full report below, or download the PDF to keep.

Pirelli's board approved an investment of about €1 billion on 22 September to expand its tire plant in Rome, Georgia.

A bigger US footprint for Pirelli. The plan lifts the site's capacity to about 6 million car tires a year by 2033. Pirelli expects around 1,000 new jobs, with implementation starting in 2027.

Pirelli's robotic MIRS technology will deliver the first 3 million tires a year, and a second automated facility adds the rest. Three directors voted against the plan.

Linglong aims at Europe from Egypt. Linglong's board approved a $270 million plant at Borg El Arab, near Alexandria, on 23 September. The company disclosed the decision the next day. The plant would have capacity for 6 million radial passenger-car tires a year after a two-year build. The project still needs government approvals and filings.

Linglong's filing cites Egypt's trade agreements with the EU, Turkey and African states as a route to preferential or zero-tariff access. The approval follows a broader $2 billion tire-complex MoU that Linglong signed with Egypt earlier in September.

Continental agrees to sell its Australian retail chain. Continental agreed on 24 September to sell mycar Tyre & Auto, which has about 280 stores, to China's Tuhu. The deal gives the chain an enterprise value of A$403 million and still needs regulatory approval. Continental called the deal another step in its focus on developing and manufacturing tires.

Rubber sets a new 13-year high. TradingEconomics' rubber benchmark reached 254.00 US¢/kg on 25 September, up 46.7% year-on-year. TradingEconomics puts that at its highest level since early 2013. It cites rain-disrupted tapping in Thailand and port congestion at Abidjan. Softer Chinese tire production has partly offset that pressure.

Electric cars pass a quarter of EU sales. Battery-electric cars took 27.7% of EU registrations in August, up 62.7% year-on-year, according to electrive. Chinese-owned groups reached 10.8% of the overall market, up from 6.6%, Euronews reports. EY's Constantin Gall warned that the growth depends heavily on subsidies and could fall sharply if they end.

Governments absorb the fuel shock. The Bundestag voted 434 to 128 on 25 September to cut German fuel tax by about 17 cents a litre. The cut runs from 1 October to 31 December and carries an estimated gross tax cost of about €2.8 billion. France said on 22 September that its €100 payment for high-mileage workers will reach 5.5 million people, up from 3 million.

The United Steelworkers asked Washington this week to consider import protection across the major US tire segments. Its 14 September letter to US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer requests a Section 201 safeguard investigation.

One case for every segment. Section 201 allows temporary relief when rising imports seriously injure a domestic industry, whatever their origin. The union's request covers passenger and light-truck, truck-and-bus, off-the-road and aircraft tires together. US anti-dumping cases to date have targeted one segment and a set of named countries at a time.

The letter cites nine US plants closed, partly closed or slated for closure since late 2024, affecting around 7,550 jobs. It also points to a roughly 40% fall in US tire output since 2000. The named sites include facilities run by Sumitomo, Bridgestone, Michelin, Yokohama and Goodyear. USTR has not yet said whether it will act.

Truck-tire capacity comes to Europe. Hankook presented the first pre-production SmartFlex AH51 from its expanded Rácalmás plant in Hungary at IAA Transportation on 14 September. Series production starts in October, with capacity for more than 800,000 truck and bus tires a year. Hankook has until now supplied these tires to Europe from Korea and China only. The line accounts for €540 million of roughly €1.4 billion invested at the site.

Rubber eases but stays high. The benchmark natural rubber price fell to 238.20 US¢/kg on 18 September, 4.7% below its 10 September peak. That peak was the highest level since 2013, and the price remains 39.6% above a year earlier. TradingEconomics attributes the pullback to softer tire demand from China, the top buyer.

Energy costs reach the ministers' agenda. At the same time, EU transport ministers opened an informal meeting in Dublin on 20 September. One session addressed the energy crisis and its impact on European transport. The other covered road-safety technology for connected and autonomous vehicles. Both discussions feed into the formal Transport Council expected in November.

Strikes return to Italian cities. Public transport workers in seven Italian cities, including Florence, Naples and Venice, struck on 15 September. Unions including Cobas, Faisa Cisal and Ugl Autoferro called the action, and guaranteed-service hours varied by operator.

Brussels closes to private cars. The Brussels-Capital Region closed entirely to private cars for Car-Free Sunday on 20 September. The event anchored European Mobility Week, which runs 16 to 22 September across more than 2,500 towns and cities.

In the first week of September 2026, Germany, Norway and the UK each published their August new-car registration data. Only one of the three set an outright record — and each number looks different once you check what’s underneath it.

One Record, Two Strong Months

• Norway, 1 September — 13,274 of 13,451 new passenger cars registered were battery-electric, a genuine record 98.7% share, up from 96.9% a year earlier. Just 94 petrol and diesel cars were registered in the entire country all month.
• Germany, 3 September — 68,930 battery-electric cars registered in August, a 32.4% share, up 75.1% year-on-year — the highest monthly share since December 2022’s subsidy-driven spike.
• United Kingdom, ~4 September — 28,063 battery-electric cars registered, a 29.8% share, up 27.7% year-on-year — the second-highest monthly BEV share of 2026 so far. The wider new-car market had its best August since biannual plates began in 2001.

The Sprint Isn’t Even

Norway’s record covers cars only. Just 44.9% of new vans registered in Norway in August were electric. The pattern behind that split points to timing, not just slower adoption. Diesel took 36.3% of new vans in the first half of August and 56.1% in the second half — a shift OFV says suggests registrations were pulled forward ahead of a 1 September tax rise on combustion vans.

SMMT’s UK release also breaks down buyers by type. Private buyers, not fleets, drove most of August’s total-market growth. Private registrations rose 19% year-on-year to a 40.8% share — over 40% for the first time. Fleet grew more slowly, up 10.1% to a 57.2% share — still the largest channel, but a declining one. SMMT doesn’t cross-tabulate buyer type against powertrain, so this can’t be read as a BEV-specific trend. It does though undercut the standard assumption that fleets are carrying UK EV growth on their own.

This growth is happening against a live policy risk. The government opened a consultation on 14 August to cut the 2030 zero-emission sales target from 80% to as low as 50%. Trade body BEAMA modelled that a weaker mandate could delay £1.56bn of home charge-point sales and installations, and leave 1.7m fewer home chargepoints by 2034. A separate ChargeUK-commissioned analysis found it could halve UK charging-network investment over five years. Charge-point operators including Fastned, Ionity and Osprey co-signed a letter to Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander warning the review “potentially undermines billions of pounds of committed investment.”

Germany’s high share, meanwhile, coincided with a reinstated, income-tested purchase grant of up to €6,000 (processed via BAFA) that’s been paying out since May. The timing is suggestive, but the available data doesn’t isolate how much of the increase is grant-driven versus organic demand.

What It Means for Passenger Demand Forecasting

None of these headline numbers is quite what it looks like at first glance — a car-only record, a subsidy-boosted share, and a buyer mix the fleet-driven narrative doesn’t usually credit.

For anyone forecasting passenger vehicle demand, the useful read isn’t the headline percentage — it’s which of those distinctions applies in a given market, since each implies a different trajectory. Astutus Research’s Vehicle Miles Driven (VKMT) in Europe quarterly update tracks passenger mobility across rail, tram, metro, bus and car. That gives registration snapshots like these a usage baseline to read against, rather than taking them at face value on their own.

FAQ

Did any European country set an EV adoption record in September 2026?
Yes — Norway. Its 98.7% BEV share for passenger cars in August, released 1 September, is a genuine record. Germany’s 32.4% (released 3 September) is its highest since December 2022, not an all-time record, and the UK’s 29.8% (released ~4 September) is the second-highest monthly share of 2026, not a record.

Is EV adoption uniform across vehicle types?
No. Norway’s 98.7% record applies to passenger cars only — just 44.9% of new vans registered in the same country and month were electric, with diesel vans jumping from 36.3% of registrations in the first half of August to 56.1% in the second half, a pattern OFV links to registrations being pulled forward ahead of a tax change.

Are UK EV buyers mostly fleets or private individuals?
SMMT’s buyer-type data doesn’t break out BEVs specifically, so this can’t be answered directly for electric vehicles. What the data does show, for the total new-car market, is that private registrations grew faster (19%, to a 40.8% share) than fleet registrations (10.1%, to 57.2%) in August — fleet remains the larger channel, but private demand is growing faster.

Is Germany’s high BEV share likely to continue?
It coincided with a reinstated, income-tested purchase grant of up to €6,000, paying out since May — but the available data doesn’t isolate how much of the increase is grant-driven versus organic demand, so that’s not yet confirmed either way.

Is the UK’s EV growth at risk?
The government has an open consultation (since 14 August) on cutting the 2030 zero-emission sales target from 80% to as low as 50%. Trade body BEAMA has warned a weaker mandate could delay £1.56bn of home charge-point sales and installations, and a separate ChargeUK analysis found it could halve UK charging-network investment over five years.

Sources

Astutus Research weekly European mobility intelligence reports, weeks of 31 August and 7 September 2026.

Supplementary sources for individual figures:

• Germany, KBA August data + historical context — autonergy, Clean Energy Wire, Clean Energy Wire — Dec 2022 context
• Norway, OFV August data + van split — electrive, autoevolution, autonext.co — van registration split
• UK, SMMT August data + buyer-type breakdown — SMMT, Carwow, FleetNews — private vs. fleet breakdown
• UK, ZEV mandate review / BEAMA warning / industry letter — Business Motoring, edie, EV Infrastructure News, Transport & Energy — coalition letter

China’s share of EU27+UK passenger and light-truck tire imports fell to 58.1% in the first five months of 2026, down from 71.8% a year earlier. Within the EU27 alone, China’s share stood at roughly 51% over the same period.

The timing is consistent with importers anticipating the ruling and drawing down stock built up earlier. EU27 volumes fell 57% year-on-year in the first quarter alone, well before duties took effect on 8 July.

The Duty Structure, In Brief

The European Commission’s ruling, published 7 July, set duties on Chinese-origin passenger-car and light-truck tires at three tiers: 4.3% for Hankook’s China-based operation, 24.4% for other cooperating producers listed in the regulation’s Annex — a category that includes the China plants of Pirelli, Goodyear, Continental and Sumitomo Rubber — and 45.3% for Shandong Yongsheng Rubber Group, one of two producer groups the Commission individually sampled and calculated a margin for. The same 45.3% rate also applies as the residual duty for any Chinese producer the regulation doesn’t name individually.

The duties took effect 8 July for an initial five-year term, covering imports the Commission found were entering at dumped prices and causing material injury, particularly in the budget “tier 3” segment. The scope is large: Chinese-origin tires made up roughly 28% of the EU tire market, about 93 million units worth €2.5bn in 2024. A parallel EU anti-subsidy investigation on the same products is ongoing and due to conclude by December 2026.

The US runs a separate, parallel track on the same Chinese-tire trade tension. A July review of Thai-made tires split two tracked manufacturers with production in Thailand. Commerce found that Sentury Tire had sold below normal value, but not Sumitomo Rubber’s Thai operation — setting different assessment rates for otherwise similar regional exposure.

Where the Volume Went

Trade data covering January–May 2026 — measured across the EU27 plus the UK — shows where the displaced Chinese share landed. ASEAN suppliers nearly tripled their combined share of EU27+UK tire imports, from 7.6% to 19.9%. Thailand’s exports rose 156% to 6 million units, Vietnam’s rose 130% to more than 3 million, and Cambodia moved from a near-zero base to 2.3 million units. Astutus Research’s own Q2 2026 ETRMA update, published in August, tracked the same shift and reached the same conclusion: much of the change had already unwound by the time the duties took effect.

Relocation, Not Retreat

Some of that ASEAN volume is understood to originate from factories Chinese tire manufacturers already own and operate in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Those plants were already up and running well before January 2026, which is what let them absorb volume that quickly.

A newer wave of Chinese-backed capacity is also moving into export-oriented free zones through 2026 — Egypt most visibly, but also Morocco. There, Guizhou Tyre cleared Chinese regulatory approval in August for a planned $298.7m, six-million-tire plant at Tangier Tech City; Moroccan-side approvals and construction are still ahead. That newer capacity can’t explain volumes already shipped by May, but it points toward the same relocation trend continuing.

A tire made outside China avoids this specific EU duty once it legitimately qualifies for the new country’s origin under EU rules. But production that shifted mainly to sidestep a trade measure can draw additional scrutiny under those same rules. Relocation isn’t a guaranteed or permanent way around EU trade defenses.

That reframes the 58% figure. It’s a real shift in where tires get physically made, and one consistent with a pre-emptive move ahead of the duties. How much it changes which companies ultimately supply the European market is a separate question the trade data alone doesn’t answer.

Early Signs at the Till

One trade-press investigation, published 12 September, looked for early consumer-price effects and didn’t come back with a clean answer. Tracking a Norauto entry-level tire in France, it documented a 7.3% price rise over two weeks — from €40.90 to €43.90. But the price-comparison service it cited said there wasn’t yet enough evidence to establish “a direct link between the recent EU measures and changes in consumer-facing prices.” The retailer’s parent company didn’t respond to the outlet’s questions.

The same piece modeled a separate, hypothetical scenario: an entry-level tire at the maximum 45.3% duty tier moving from roughly €61 to €88. That model applies the duty rate directly to the retail price, which isn’t how the duty is actually calculated — it applies to the customs value of the import, a smaller base than the shelf price. Treat both figures as one outlet’s early, unverified read, not a settled effect.

What It Means for Trade-Flow Forecasting

For anyone forecasting demand or mapping trade flows, country-of-origin statistics are diverging further from country-of-ownership. That gap predates this shift, since Chinese-owned ASEAN capacity was already running before 2026 — but the July duties may widen it further. That gap matters more than the headline share number. A tire manufactured in Cambodia that satisfies EU non-preferential origin rules is recorded as Cambodian, even if the factory is Chinese-owned. The commercial relationship, along with much of the pricing power, may not have moved at all.

Astutus Research’s European Tire Trade Database tracks country-of-origin import volumes, market share by origin market, and price trends across the EU tire trade. That’s the country-of-origin side of the picture this post describes — distinct from ownership or corporate structure, which the database doesn’t cover.

FAQ

What are the EU’s anti-dumping duty rates on Chinese tires?
Three tiers, effective 8 July 2026 for five years: 4.3% for Hankook’s China-based operation, 24.4% for other cooperating producers listed in the regulation’s Annex (including the China plants of Pirelli, Goodyear, Continental and Sumitomo Rubber), and 45.3% for Shandong Yongsheng Rubber Group — also the residual rate applied to any Chinese producer the regulation doesn’t name individually.

Is China actually losing the EU tire market?
Its recorded EU27+UK import share fell from 71.8% to 58.1% in a year, but most of that decline happened before the July duties took effect — timing consistent with importers anticipating the ruling and drawing down pre-duty stock, though trade data alone can’t establish the reason. Some of the volume is understood to have moved to ASEAN-based factories Chinese manufacturers already operate — a relocation of where tires are made, not necessarily a loss of underlying market control.

Which countries gained the most import share?
Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, within EU27+UK tire imports. Thailand’s exports rose 156% to 6 million units, Vietnam’s rose 130% to over 3 million, and Cambodia went from near zero to 2.3 million units.

Are these duties raising consumer prices?
One trade-press investigation found a 7.3% two-week price rise on a single budget tire, but the price-comparison service it cited said it couldn’t yet establish a direct link to the duties — so this remains an open question, not a confirmed effect.

When does the related EU anti-subsidy investigation conclude?
It’s due to conclude by December 2026, covering the same product scope as the anti-dumping duties.

Sources

Astutus Research weekly tire market intelligence reports, weeks of 13 July, 20 July, 17 August and 14 September 2026; Astutus Research’s own Q2 2026 ETRMA update (12 August 2026).

European Commission (regulation text) and Tire Business (EU ruling, rates and scope); European Rubber Journal (China/ASEAN trade-flow data, 10 Aug 2026 — EU27+UK scope); Morocco World News, Ecofin Agency and Hespress (Guizhou Tyre Morocco plant); Federal Register (US Thailand anti-dumping review, 20 Jul 2026); Car Revs Daily (consumer-price investigation, 12 Sep 2026 — single-source, see reviewer notes).

Five Chinese tire groups have committed roughly $4.1bn–$4.25bn to Egyptian manufacturing plants in the space of thirteen months. Two of the five are already under construction. Linglong and ZC Rubber, the two most recent, formalized their agreements within 48 hours of each other in the first week of September 2026. Press coverage has named one of the five under two different corporate names and investment figures. This piece treats it as the single project the underlying company filings describe.

Five Projects Advanced Since August 2025

• Sailun — ~$1bn across three phases, Suez Canal Economic Zone. Signed August 2025; the first phase ($291m, 3 million passenger-car and 600,000 truck-and-bus tires a year) broke ground in September 2025 and is under construction.
• Long March Tyres — ~$190m, Ain Sokhna (TEDA Egypt Industrial Zone). A subsidiary of Chaoyang LongMarch Tyre. Broke ground 17 June 2026 and is under construction — two phases building toward 1 million truck-and-bus tires and 4.5 million passenger-car tires a year.
• Linglong — ~$2bn, Borg El Arab (Alexandria). First proposed in April 2026 with local partner Nile Trade, formalized as a memorandum of understanding on 3 September 2026. The April proposal detailed a private free-zone structure, with around 90% of output earmarked for the US and Gulf. The September MOU broadens that to domestic sales plus exports to Europe and the US, without reconfirming the earlier free-zone/export split. Treat the 90% US/Gulf figure as the initial proposal, not a confirmed final term.
• CNTR/Aeolus/Prometeon (Alexandria) — one project, disclosed twice within the same corporate group. Egyptian authorities put CNTR’s investment through Prometeon Tyre Egypt at ~$550m in June 2026. Aeolus Tyre, majority-owned by CNTR, had filed a different figure for the same site the month before — RMB2.68bn (~$395m), via a joint venture with Prometeon and Hong Kong’s CNRC International. The two figures shouldn’t be added together. Combined capacity comes to 1.5 million TBR tires plus 30,000 OTR and 30,000 agricultural tires a year, targeted for early 2028. Transaction documents were still unsigned as of Aeolus’s filing, and approvals remain pending.
• ZC Rubber — ~$500m, Sokhna Industrial Zone. Letter of intent signed 2 September 2026, three phases across roughly 600,000 square metres, around 95% of production earmarked for the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Duties Are One Factor Among Several

The European Commission published EU anti-dumping duties of 4.3–45.3% on Chinese-made passenger and light-truck tires on 7 July 2026. They entered into force the following day. A parallel anti-subsidy investigation is due to conclude by December. In the US, Chinese tires face a mix of product-specific antidumping and countervailing-duty orders, plus separate China tariffs. Rates vary substantially by tire category, producer and review period. Commerce’s 2026 sunset review found dumping margins of up to 87.99% likely to recur for the passenger and light-truck order if it were revoked — a measure of the order’s continued necessity, not a current cash-deposit rate.

Manufacturing in Egypt doesn’t automatically sit outside either regime, though. EU duties attach to a product’s legal country of origin, determined under the Union Customs Code’s substantial-transformation test. That test doesn’t look simply at where the factory sits — production that moved mainly to sidestep a trade measure can draw added scrutiny. Egypt also has no general free-trade agreement with the US. Its one preferential channel is the Qualifying Industrial Zones protocol. That requires 11% Israeli-sourced value added to qualify for duty-free entry — a narrower mechanism than a blanket free-zone exemption. Nothing in the public record ties these projects to it.

Tariff avoidance is a plausible driver of the timing, but the record doesn’t make it the dominant one. Only two of the five deals — Linglong’s MOU and ZC Rubber’s letter of intent — came after the duties took effect. Sailun signed nearly a year earlier, Long March broke ground three weeks before the ruling, and the CNTR/Aeolus disclosures landed in May and June, months before the duties existed.

Egypt’s own push to attract the industry also predates this year’s tariff cycle. It imported roughly $580m of new pneumatic tires in 2023, a gap it wants to close with domestic capacity. Linglong’s initial proposal dates from April, months before the duties took effect. The Egyptian prime minister attended Linglong’s September signing, underscoring the project’s political weight — that signing itself came after the duties landed. Geography, meanwhile — proximity to the Suez Canal and short shipping routes to southern Europe — was already favourable regardless of trade policy.

Construction Has Started for Two of Five

Sailun’s and Long March’s plants are already under construction. The other three are earlier-stage, at different levels of commitment. Linglong’s Borg El Arab project is a memorandum of understanding. ZC Rubber’s Sokhna complex is a letter of intent pending a feasibility study. Egyptian, Chinese and regional press have reported the CNTR/Aeolus/Prometeon project as an investment plan, without a confirmed construction start.

Greenfield and expansion timelines mean near-term tire supply is unaffected either way. The Alexandria project isn’t due until early 2028, and neither Linglong nor ZC Rubber has a published start date.

What It Means for Capacity Planning

What’s shifting first is where manufacturers are committing new export capacity, not the supply picture itself. Egypt now sits alongside Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia as a jurisdiction Chinese manufacturers are choosing. Part of the appeal: it currently falls outside the EU and US duty regimes as they’re enforced today. Egypt isn’t yet a targeted jurisdiction, unlike those established Southeast Asian bases — several of which are themselves now drawing trade-defence scrutiny.

For anyone tracking tire manufacturing capacity, the useful signal here is intent, not just confirmed construction. That intent also shapes how trade flows will move once the capacity comes online. Five Chinese groups are converging on the same jurisdiction inside thirteen months, two of them already breaking ground. That’s worth watching now, before it becomes operating capacity that shows up in headlines.

Astutus Research’s European Tire Trade Database tracks China-origin tire volumes by destination and transhipment route. Its Global Tire Production Capacity Database maps announced, under-construction and operational capacity, so you can see the pipeline building in real time.

FAQ

Which Chinese tire companies are building or expanding plants in Egypt?
Five, as of September 2026: Sailun (~$1bn, Suez Canal Economic Zone, under construction since September 2025), Long March Tyres (~$190m, Ain Sokhna, under construction since June 2026), Linglong (~$2bn, Borg El Arab, memorandum of understanding), a CNTR/Aeolus/Prometeon joint project in Alexandria (~$394–550m depending on which corporate disclosure is used), and ZC Rubber (~$500m, Sokhna, letter of intent).

Why are they building in Egypt instead of China?
Egyptian production doesn’t automatically escape either regime — EU anti-dumping duties (4.3–45.3% on Chinese-made passenger and light-truck tires, in force since 8 July 2026) attach to a product’s legal country of origin, not simply to factory location, and the US has no general free-trade agreement with Egypt outside the narrow Qualifying Industrial Zones channel, which requires 11% Israeli-sourced value added. Tariff avoidance is a plausible driver, though Egypt’s own long-running push to attract tire manufacturing — including a roughly $580m annual tire import bill (2023, the most recent confirmed full year) it wants to displace — predates the current tariff cycle.

How much of the output will be exported?
The two projects with disclosed export targets skew heavily export-oriented: Linglong’s April proposal earmarked around 90% of output for the US and Gulf (not reconfirmed at September’s MOU stage, which describes a broader domestic-plus-export market), and ZC Rubber has earmarked roughly 95% for the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Sailun and Long March are primarily aimed at Egyptian, African, Middle Eastern and European demand rather than a single disclosed export percentage.

Which of these projects are actually under construction?
Two: Sailun’s (since September 2025) and Long March’s (since June 2026). The rest range from a memorandum of understanding (Linglong) to a letter of intent (ZC Rubber) to an investment plan reported in trade and financial press without a confirmed construction start (the CNTR/Aeolus/Prometeon project).

When will the new capacity come online?
No confirmed full-capacity date for most projects. The clearest published target is the CNTR/Aeolus/Prometeon project’s early 2028; Aeolus’s own filing separately cites a 20-month construction period for its share of that project.

Sources

Astutus Research weekly tire market intelligence report, week of 7 September 2026 (Linglong, ZC Rubber, EU duty timeline).

Supplementary research on Sailun, CNTR/Prometeon and Aeolus, sourced 2026-09-11 and multi-source verified 2026-09-17 and 2026-09-18: AGBI, Ahram Online, Daily Sabah, Daily News Egypt, Business Today Egypt, EgyptToday, Zawya, Ecofin Agency, Tyrepress, European Rubber Journal, MarkLines.

Linglong September 2026 MOU: Tyrepress, Arab News, European Rubber Journal. Egypt tire import bill (2023): trendeconomy.com, HS 4011. US AD/CVD duty rates on Chinese tires: Federal Register, Tire Review. Egypt-US Qualifying Industrial Zones protocol: AmCham Egypt, EveryCRSReport.

Long March Tyres: Tyrepress, Amwal Al Ghad, Zawya. EU Regulation 2026/1540 dates: EUR-Lex. Sailun phase-1 figure: European Rubber Journal.

Astutus Research has published a new release of Truck VKMT Europe, adding two capabilities to the dataset: vehicle kilometres travelled broken out by country of performance, alongside the existing country-of-registration view, and a forecast horizon extended from 2030 to 2032.

Country of Performance Joins Country of Registration

Every previous release measured truck activity by country of registration, where a vehicle is licensed. This release adds a second, independent measure: country of performance, where the kilometres are actually driven. The two are tracked separately across all 26 European markets in the dataset, giving subscribers a registration-based view and an activity-based view of the same fleet, rather than one number standing in for both.

Forecasts Now Run to 2032

The forecast horizon extends two years beyond the previous release, from 2030 to 2032, on both the registration and performance bases. History in this release starts from 2015.

Available Now

Both additions are live in Truck VKMT Europe as of this release, across all 26 markets and the full 2015 to 2032 window, on registration and performance bases alike. Subscribers can access the full dataset, Power BI reports with the country-by-country breakdown through their existing Truck VKMT Europe access.

Access the full dataset in Truck VKMT Europe.

Europe's replacement tire market strengthened in the second quarter of 2026, with the recovery that began in Q1 now reaching across both consumer and commercial segments. Tyres Europe's figures for the quarter and first half show demand building even as higher fuel costs held down miles driven, and as the European Commission moved to reshape the import map with definitive anti-dumping duties on Chinese product.

The Recovery Broadens: Consumer and Truck Volumes Both Ahead

Consumer replacement tires (passenger car, SUV and light commercial) rose 3% year-on-year in Q2 2026 to 51.99 million units, lifting first-half volumes 2% to 110.1 million. The standout was commercial. Truck and Bus tires rose 13% in the quarter to 2.70 million units and are 7% higher across the first half, as freight activity and business sentiment held up despite high fuel and energy costs.

Within the consumer segment, the shift toward year-round product continued:

• All Season tires rose 15% in the quarter and 9% across the first half, leading the market once again
• Summer tires slipped 2%, still ceding share to All Season
• Winter tires edged down 1% in the quarter and remain 5% lower over the first half

Agricultural tires fell 7%, though that is a markedly slower decline than the 12% recorded in Q1. Moto and Scooter tires rose 1% in the quarter and 4% across the first half.

Miles Driven Fell as Public Transport Pulled Ahead

The demand backdrop remains uneven. Miles travelled declined over the quarter, reflecting higher average fuel prices and weaker consumer sentiment tied to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. It is the same headwind that shaped Q1, still working its way through replacement intervals.

The longer-term shift in how Europe moves is becoming clearer in the data. Aggregate passenger mobility passed its 2019 level for the first time in 2025, but the growth is not in the car. Public transport passenger kilometres rose an estimated 3%, more than double the growth in light-vehicle traffic. Rail now stands 11% above 2019 volumes, lifting its modal share to 9% as the car's share slipped. Discounted fares continue to support the trend, with Germany's Deutschlandticket now extended to 2030.

Import Flows Redrawn: China Back to 2019, ASEAN Nears 20%

Passenger and light commercial tire imports into the EU27+UK fell 6% year-on-year over January to May 2026, and the composition changed far more than the headline. Chinese-origin volumes dropped 24%, taking China's share to 58%, down from 72% a year earlier and effectively back to where it stood in 2019.

ASEAN suppliers filled the gap, almost tripling their share from 7.4% to 19.9%. Thailand led the shift, with volumes rising to almost 6 million units from 2 million, while Vietnam more than doubled to over 3 million and Cambodia emerged as a genuine source at 2.3 million units from a near-zero base. In many cases these are tires from ASEAN plants under Chinese ownership. Korea and Japan held a stable combined share of 14.6%. The UK, which sits outside the EU tariff regime, still sources around 75% of its imports from China, pulling up the combined regional figure.

Truck Tire Imports Concentrate in ASEAN

The same realignment is playing out in commercial tires. Truck and Bus imports into the EU27+UK from non-European markets rose almost 27% over the first five months of 2026. Thailand and Vietnam together now account for almost 61% of the total, up from 57% a year earlier and under 30% as recently as 2019. China's share fell to 16% from 19%, even as its volumes rose 9%. India grew three-fold to become the fourth-largest source at a 6% share, overtaking both Egypt and Korea, whose volumes and shares both eroded.

Brussels Draws a Line: Definitive Duties From July

On 7 July 2026, the European Commission concluded its anti-dumping investigation into Chinese passenger and light commercial tire imports, finding that they had entered the EU at dumped prices and caused material injury to the European tire industry. It imposed definitive duties ranging from 4.3% to 45.3%, effective from 8 July 2026 for an initial five-year period, with no retroactive application. Much of the Chinese share had already unwound in anticipation, with EU27 volumes falling 57% in Q1 as stockpiled inventory cleared. The duties now set the terms under which the next phase of import competition will play out.

Read the full Q2 2026 Tyres Europe (ETRMA) Quarterly Update, prepared by Astutus Research below.

‍