Sentury Tire North America is a new American subsidiary owned by Qingdao Sentury Tire Company in China. Sentury Tire specializes in the advanced manufacturing of tires for use in the automotive and aerospace industries. The company is a world leader in highly intelligent tire manufacturing processes that increase efficiency and minimize production times, and robotics plays a crucial role in the production process. Sentury Tire offers a full range of summer and winter tires for passenger cars, ultrahigh performance vehicles, SUV's, CUV's, light trucks and off-road vehicles. Headquartered in Qingdao, Shandong, China, Sentury Tire has facilities in both China and Thailand, and plans to invest $530 million in a consumer tire plant in its first US-based facility to be located in LaGrange/Georgia, and scheduled to open in 2018. At full operational scale and capacity, the LaGrange facility will employ more than 1,000 people, and manufacture over 12 million passenger and light truck tires annually. The new American operations will be run by Sentury Tire North America, LLC.