Eplus3D and Hankook Push Metal 3D Printing Into Tire Production

One of the hidden gems in 3D printing is tire production. Several companies, most notably Michelin, have used 3D printing extensively for tire molds and other parts of tire production for years. With few companies in the business, it hasn’t been big news, but it has been a building success, shifting material and machines for decades.

Eplus3D has worked with Hankook Precision Works on tire molds. Hankook is a South Korean tire giant. Hankook Precision Works is a subsidiary specializing in mold production and machining for tires and related components. The company got into additive manufacturing only a few years ago. Generally, the firm wanted to shorten time-to-market while also offering more market-specific tires. Through changing the mold design, better tire patterns can be created for specific vehicle families or uses. This could lead to better road handling or mileage, for example. It could also let the company make specific tires for electric EV delivery vans, for example, or to reduce the road noise given off by garbage trucks.

Hankook Precision Works now makes 3D printed mold components for its clients. Tires have patterned slits in their surfaces. This is literally where the rubber meets the road. Their depth, geometry, and what occurs on the surface have huge effects on the vehicle. These cuts are called sipes or kerfs. They expand on contact with the road and help the tire grip the road. Changes in the tread pattern overall or in these kerfs can affect ride, stability, braking distance, speed, cornering, and almost all the major factors that affect your car’s ride.

Faster iteration and more geometric freedom enable better sipe designs. At the same time, 3D printing them is generally cheaper and can produce custom mold shapes to generate the exact sipe pattern. Hankook evaluated an E Plus EP-M300, a dual-laser 300x300x450mm build-volume system with smart production features, including reduced gas consumption, longer filter life, and monitoring software. The machine was first used in September 2025, and Eplus helped the company press the system into production. The company now states that it has been used to make 100,000 components since then. Hankook bought a second machine in February of this year.

Eplus staff not only trained people on the system and got it up and running at Hankook’s facility, but also helped industrialize it there. Part testing, process parameter development, and implementation in production were done on the factory floor. We’ve seen a lot of success from consultancy teams helping clients come up to speed in 3D printing. EOS’s Additive Minds has been doing this kind of thing for a while. By helping companies, a consultancy can speed up implementations. It can also derisk them. And in the case of Eplus, the availability of application engineers and support on-site could have made them feel comfortable enough to work with the firm.

As a sales accelerator and a market growth tool, the right advice and hand-holding can work wonders. You’re not selling a box. You’ve got the potential to become a department, business unit, or the company’s future. And if they get it wrong, the people you’re talking to could get fired. We also lack systems integrators. Famously, we’re supposed to be a time-compression technology, but when implementing additive takes years, we can often seem like a time-elongation technology.

Through expanding into Europe and ramping up its customer base, the company is showing that it aims to meet the market wherever it is. With cases like these under its belt, the company can show off a track record that could convince many more to become clients.