PitPro Automation, a San Francisco startup, has put its first production tyre-changing system to work at a Kal Tire shop in Calgary, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday. The system pairs an alignment lift with two gantry robots that fit in a single service bay, and the company says it can remove and replace all four wheels on a vehicle in under 15 minutes. Kal Tire runs more than 280 stores across Canada.
The robots locate each wheel, loosen and store the lug nuts, pull the wheel and fit the new or rotated one. Fleet Maintenance reports that sensors also measure tread depth and tyre pressure, flag broken or stripped nuts, and log torque against manufacturer specification. The unit handles light vehicles in classes one to three. Founder and chief executive Jeremy Conrad said PitPro started out aiming at commercial fleets but now sees tyre chains as a big near-term market, especially in Canada, where seasonal changeovers bring predictable rushes.
The pitch is labour. Tyre shops struggle to keep technicians, and Conrad described one shop manager needing special permission to raise pay after a fast-food restaurant opened across the street. Kenneth Chaun, Kal Tire’s senior vice president of strategy and innovation, framed the machine as a force multiplier for staff rather than a replacement for them.
What PitPro has not disclosed is the price, the funding behind it, or how many bays it expects to fill beyond one further installation planned this year. The early lesson from Calgary was environmental: with the bay doors open, dandelion seeds settled across the machinery, and the company had to confirm they would not trouble its sensors. A prairie winter will be a sterner test than a prairie summer.
