Having acquired Cooper Tires, the parent company of Avon Tyres, Goodyear has announced that Cooper Tires Europe is to close the 130-year-old Avon site at Melksham in England. The company will "gradually phase out all Melksham-based operations by the end of 2023". IDN contacted Goodyear for information as to whether Avon branded production will continue elsewhere, or if this is the end of the road for Avon Tyres, however, as at press time, the silence had been deafening. We are left to draw our own conclusions, I guess.
Zero Motorcycles (Scotts Valley, California) has completed a new funding round worth some $107m. The proceeds will "fund the scaling of its global operations and the introduction of new models". Investors include Polaris, Exor, Hero MotoCorp, long-time backer Invus, and others. Since its launch in a Santa Cruz garage, Zero has sold over 20,000 vehicles that have accumulated over 165,000,000 miles of on-road and off-road experience. With this round of financing, Zero Motorcycles has raised in excess of $450m of capital and will bring the cumulative capital raised to above $500m, with an anticipated additional closing by year end.
Following the lead set by Honda and others, Brembo is to establish a business incubator of its own, "Brembo Ventures" - a venture capital unit that "aims to accelerate the development of innovative solutions for the mobility of tomorrow". BV will also coordinate relations with the start-ups where Brembo is a shareholder. One such is its 6.8% acquisition of PhotonPath, a business that "creates new solutions for the digitalisation of braking systems". BV also holds a 20% stake in Infibra Technologies - a 2014 founded research institute spin-off that develops and produces integrated photonic systems.
Sources: AMD, IDN, FT, Reuters, PSB, MPN, BDN, MCN, AP, Bloomberg, MSNW, Electrek, electricmotorcycles.news, RideApart.com, Motor1.com, Cycle World, motorbikewriter.com
