Read the latest Technology coverage and analysis from the tire industry on Traction News.
Hunter Engineering’s Road Force WalkAway, Inspection Live and Hunter University won 2026 PTEN Innovation Awards, and Hunter University also took a People’s Choice Award.
Klipboard has introduced Autowork, a cloud-based shop management platform for independent, single-location automotive repair shops, service centers and tire businesses.
Global Air Cylinder Wheels’ Air Suspension Wheel, a proposed alternative to conventional mining tires, has won the 2026 People’s Choice Safety Innovation Award at Queensland’s mining safety conference.
More than 450,000 leads, 900,000+ customer conversations and 312,000 minutes of calls across 115 dealerships point to a growing role for conversational AI in automotive retail.
New diagnostic workflow brings together OEM repair information, real-world repair intelligence, and AI-powered insights in one workflow to reduce search time and improve diagnostic confidence.
POLYN Technology has delivered its first VibroSense TMS engineering sensor nodes, which estimate tire-road friction from inside the tire, for customer evaluation. A commercially available chip is not due to tape out until mid-2027.
TraXtion's TireSpec embeds in dealer and tire shop websites and reads a tire's sidewall from a smartphone photo to return replacement options and pricing in seconds, with no app or tire size entry needed.
Net Driven's AI Service Writer, a virtual service advisor that answers shop calls and chats and quotes jobs using each shop's own pricing, has won a peer-voted 2026 MOTOR Top 20 Award.
Branick Industries will debut its heavy-duty TC500 tire cart and the UPS/FedEx Ground-shippable TC500B at SEMA booth #43111, with 500-lb capacity and handling for tires up to 41 inches.
