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Business Development 2008 – 2009
ETV Corporation PL successfully completed an extensive 12 month Technology Review of it’s VisiTyre TPMS, under an Agreement signed in December 2005, with Asia’s leading electronics manufacturer, Delta Electronics Inc, based in Taiwan.
Delta Electronics Tainan Test Laboratory, Taiwan:
The next 12 months will now focus on the production readiness of VisiTyre through a rigorous program of environmental and auto industry standards testing for the USA, European and Asian OEM auto markets.
Great interest has been shown by Leading Tier 1 Auto supplier companies in the Batteryless VisiTyre TPMS technology, as there is an undercurrent of concern about the impact that failure of battery powered TPMS will have on vehicle manufacturer’s warranties and accident liability. Environmental concerns associated with the impact of the large number of batteries that the first generation of battery powered TPMSs employed is also driving demand for VisiTyre Batteryless Technology. Automotive Engineers are impressed with the ability of VisiTyre to report every tire’s status immediately after vehicle ignition and to work transparently with and independently of all replacement tires.
Currently, ETV is working closely with Delta Electronics on the industry standard Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) for customer acceptance. In addition to having completed an RFQ for 100K, 1M, and 10M units for a European Tier 1, VisiTyre is undergoing trials with a prominent Chinese Automotive manufacturer.
Importantly, VisiTyre’s production partner, Delta Electronics, is a world class production company with large monthly consolidated sales revenues in excess of US$40M and which has a demonstrated capability of mass production techniques which leverage standard electronics industry semiconductor foundry processes for high reliability and very high volumes essential for the automotive sector’s huge application and its demanding PPAP.
It is planned that VisiTyre will be in low volume production during 2008 to fulfil all testing and certification requirements, before moving to mass production capability in order to be in a position to fulfil supply contracts for MY 2009 models on a global basis.
The market for TPMS is extending from the US mandated market of approximately 25 million systems PA, to encompass the European Union, which is seeking to implement a TPMS Mandate for the 27 member countries through a phase in commencing 2010 that will increase the business case to 50 million systems PA by 2012. Many other countries are following this lead... e.g. India and China for non safety reasons, relating to environmental impacts and a reduction in fuel consumption/import of oil.
The existing TPMS suppliers are all offering battery powered RF based systems evolved from the after market and while they are fulfilling the current market demand, particulalrly in the US, they have many shortcoming s and an emerging liability problem due to the battery failures and problems with their location within the tyre air cavity. The EU and some US states are very concerned with the pollution potential of hundreds of millions of Lithium Thionyl Chloride batteries unnecessarily entering the environment and are increasing their pressure for a non battery technology to be introduced.
Currently ETV has a non exclusive relationship with Delta Electronics for the purpose of production and market development, primarily in China where a relationship has been established with Chery Automotive. It is ETV's desire to develop further market development relationships, either for production/sales or purely sales to OEM's with Delta providing the product.
There is an extensive niche market in the Light Van market for a GPRS based Fleet TPMS particularly in Europe that VisiTyre is developing. Discussions with the European Commission have highlighted the ability of VisiTyre TPMS to immediately reduce emissions on light vans by as much as 3% by reducing fuel consumption by as much as 10% by the dynamic monitoring of correct tyre pressure through GPRS based Fleet TPMS data flowing live back to the fleet service department.
