The Yokohama Rubber Company, Limited was established in 1917 in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture with a joint investment from Furukawa Electric Company, Ltd. (formerly Yokohama Cable Manufacturing Company, Ltd.) and BFGoodrich. The Yokohama Rubber Company’s head office is located in Tokyo, Japan and has factories and plants in Hiratsuka, Mie, Mishima, Shinshiro, Ibaraki, Onomichi, and Nagano. They have several overseas subsidiaries including Yokohama Tire Corporation, which was established in the United States in 1969, Yokohama Tire (Canada) Inc.; Yokohama Tyre Australia Pty., Ltd.; Yokohama Europe GmbH, Yokohama Tire Philippines, Inc.; Yokohama Tyre Vietnam Inc.; Hangzhou Yokohama Tire Co., Ltd.; Yokohama Tire Manufacturing (Thailand) Co., Ltd.; and Yokohama Rubber (Thailand) Co., Ltd.

Yokohama’s basic corporate philosophy is “To enrich people’s lives and contribute to their greater happiness and well-being by devoting our wholehearted energies and advanced technology to the creation of beneficial products.” Yokohama has four management policies which include: taking on the challenge of new technologies to produce new value; developing proprietary business fields to expand the scope of business; creating a workplace that values, improves and energizes people; and dealing fairly with society and protecting the environment. They also have three action guidelines: to develop themselves so that they may give their personal best; to trust, challenge and improve one another; and to nurture a welcoming, open spirit. Yokohama’s corporate slogan is “Excellence by nature.”

Yokohama has a comprehensive research and development team that works with materials development, product design, testing and evaluation. RADIC (Research and Development Integrated Centre) has state-of-the-art facilities, including supercomputers and centrifugal separators. Yokohama also has two extensive testing facilities, D-PARC (Daigo Proving Ground and Research Centre) and T*MARY (Takasu Motoring and Researching Yard), which simulate all types of road surfaces. D-PARC’s oval track features 41-degree banking, Japan’s largest skid pad, and 20 types of road surfaces. T*MARY is a test course for snow tires that evaluates the driving, braking, and cornering capabilities of studless tires under a variety of conditions.

Yokohama’s mainstay tire products include tires for passenger cars, trucks and buses, light trucks, mining and construction equipment, industrial vehicles and aircraft, aluminum alloy wheels, and automobile-related components.

One of Yokohama’s most popular tires is the Avid tire line, which includes the Avid H4, Avid V4, Avid T4, and the Avid Touring-S. The Avid H4 and Avid V4 are high-performance, all-season tires designed to combine “obsessive performance” and “compulsive comfort.” The Avid H4/V4 tire features a directional tread design to provide better wet traction while allowing its tread to feature large, closely spaced tread blocks to provide better dry traction. The tires have a 5 year limited warranty, 45,000 mile warranty, and a free 30 day trial. The Avid T4 is an all-season tire developed to provide “the performance Yokohama is known for at an affordable price.” The Avid T4 offers supreme ride quality and low noise generation. The tire features a 5 year limited warranty, 60,000 mile warranty, and a free 30 day trial. The Avid Touring-S are all-season tires developed to provide “compelling comfort, impeccable value, and surprising ability.” The Avid Touring-S offers great ride quality, real-world handling, and low noise generation.

Another popular tire is the Geolandar A/T-S. The Geolandar A/T-S is Yokohama’s on-/off-road, all-terrain tire that has Yokohama’s absolute latest technology. The tire has many features including multi-stepped grooves, dual interlocking pyramid sipes, rounded-edge tread blocks, large tread block, staggered center blocks, and aggressive sidewall protectors. The multi-stepped grooves increase the surface area of the tread to increase traction in dirt or loose gravel while simultaneously reducing tread squirm for enhanced on-road capabilities. The dual interlocking pyramid sipes maintain tread rigidity for improved tire wear and excellent all-weather traction. The rounded-edge tread blocks combat uneven tire wear and reduce noise. The large tread blocks mean more stability at highway speeds and enhanced handling with less noise. The staggered center blocks create more biting edges, which improve off-road performance. The aggressive sidewall protectors fight off sidewall cuts and abrasions, and increase off-road bite. The tire also features a 5 year limited warranty, 50,000 mile warranty, and a 30 day free trial.