New Michelin Tires: Look ma, no flats!

A friend sent me some interesting pictures (below). It seems Michelin has developed a new tire. See any problems with it? The issues just seem so transparent to me

1) No more burnouts. You smoke 'em you replace 'em.
2) Pop the clutch. watch the back end of your vehicle hit the ground as the "flexible spokes" collapse. There will be a new market for old-style skid plates
3) Cleaning those honey combs will be a b#tch!
4) A spike in the sales of mag wheel brushes, so buy your company stock now!
5) anyone old enough to remember re-caps & re-treads???
6) A whole new market for custom "tread patterns" and "sheer bands"
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ive seen these pop up on the forums many times. I dont think they will ever sell these. You made some very good points as to why these would probably never make it to the market.

 

One thing I neglected to mention is the massive old tire problem.

I just read an article on Yahoo News yesterday where an island off Australia was having thousands of old tires wash ashore. It seems the artifishal [sic] reef that was suppose to be a boon to fishlife fell apart and was washing ashore creating a disaster.

As recycling coordinator of a local town, I had to trace the life of used tires collected by the town. USA isn't allowed to burn them so it is cheaper to ship them abroad. Most of the East Coast tires go to a few central companies where they ship them to Greece where they burn them for fuel. And guess what? the ashes and acid rain and pollution have been tracked floating back to the USA. Hmmmmm


So the plus side would be these would reduce the amount of waste tires collecting around the world. Now that's something I'd support. At least on my DD.

 

i saw these, i believe, a year back (vwvortex (thank you audi)). they're interesting and all, but i just cannot stand the design. they look pretty damn'd old school to me.

 

Wonder what happens to the tires during a panic stop. What if you wear a tread right down to those "spokes"??

 

you forgot one thing..........


they are ugly as sin!

 

Yuk! They look like old school horse and carriage wheels...They'll probably be a big hit with the Amish Fast n Furious crowd...

 

im in i can finally take my car off some sweet jumps.

 

IIRC, these photos were just for demo purposes (i.e. cutaways) -- the actual tires they were/are planning to produce won't actually look like those -- they'll look "normal"...

nlh

 

Right, I'm sure if they ever market them they would put sidewalls on the tires - my concern would be that they would only be available in higher profile sidewalls. Not low profile for larger rims.

I'm also not so concerned about the spokes collapsing when you dump the clutch, as that audi is cornering in that picture, and the tire is holding up well.

Additionally, burn outs should be no different, as the actual tread on the outside of the tire should be the same as normal air holding tires.

I wonder how different these are internally from run flat tires...