Hankook Tire supplies tires to BMW

South Korea's Hankook Tire & Technology said on Wednesday that it started to supply its Ventus S1 evo Z tires as original equipment for BMW's seventh-generation high-performance sedan, the M5.

BMW's M series, like Mercedes-Benz's AMG or Audi's RS, is a brand assigned to models with performance comparable to sports cars, and the seventh-generation M5 is characterized by the adoption of a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) system.

Hankook Tire collaborated with BMW to develop tires suitable for the heavier M5 compared to its predecessor. The company explained that the development and verification process took three years.

The Ventus S1 evo Z focuses on delivering driving dynamics for high-performance sedans, reducing rolling resistance and improving fuel efficiency.

In particular, to ensure high steering stability despite the increased load, the tire maintains a wide gap between the contact area and the tread blocks and is equipped with reinforced aramid hybrid belts. This minimizes unnecessary deformation of the tire caused by centrifugal force or lateral forces during high-speed driving.

Hankook Tire also stated that the tread is made from a special material customized for the M5, providing optimal grip across a wide temperature range.

For the development of this product, Hankook Tire applied AI-supported algorithms during the driving test process and conducted test runs on the Nürburgring Nordschleife and the Nardò Ring track.

Write to Jin-Won Kim at jin1@hankyung.com