To meet the growing demand for air springs products, driven by the burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) sector, Bridgestone Americas is expanding its Firestone Industrial Products (FSIP) air springs production facility in Williamsburg, Kentucky, at an investment of $ 51 million.
According to the company, the 68,000 sq ft expansion of the Williamsburg plant will be completed by December 2022. FSIP purchased the building and land located in Williamsburg in 1988. The Williamsburg Plant is currently 375,000 square feet.
FSIP designs, tests, and manufactures components for air suspensions in Williamsburg. It operates a second plant, in Dyersburg, Tennessee, where air springs are assembled. In addition, FSIP's North America Advanced Technical Design Center in Fishers, Indiana, enables the company to remain agile and focus on speed to market, a key requirement of start-up EV companies. The company also operates plants in Brazil, China, Costa Rica and Poland.
To Acquire Azuga
The company has also announced that it is purchasing Azuga Holdings and the Azuga fleet management platform for $ 391 million. The acquisition will accelerate its efforts to develop and deploy sustainable mobility solutions as a central pillar of the advanced mobility strategy.
The Azuga fleet management platform, which includes advanced safety and fleet management tools, will complement the existing Bridgestone portfolio of cloud-based fleet mobility solutions. It will rapidly advance Bridgestone's comprehensive solutions for small to enterprise-sized fleets, providing real-time vehicle operations insights and data analytics that will improve safety, increase efficiency and enhance customer service experiences. In addition, the tyremaker will leverage Azuga's robust fleet data capture platform to advance the development of Bridgestone core tire products and AI solutions.
The acquisition continues its evolution toward becoming a sustainable solutions company and builds upon its recently announced investment in autonomous long-haul trucking company Kodiak Robotics.