Airless Tire called Tweel by Michelin

From the blurb on it, seems better than a conventional tire. So yes why not. I guess they come in all flavours.

 

"Win on Sunday, sell on Monday".

When racecars start running them, ...

 

Wow did we miss the news in 2005

 

How ya gonna get the hubcap to spin on those rims?

 

Just a prediction...this thing will never take off.

Lots of issues with this design; there's the impact absorption (pneumatic dampens much better than this poly rim design), comfort of ride (air cushion beats direct spring every time), plus with all of they cycling the fins will encounter, they will lose their "spring" within a few years making for an expensive replacement.

The tire industry has been trying to innovate "flat free" tires for years. They've tried closed foam polyuretane fillers back in the day and if that didn't take off, this won't either. The biggest issue is cost and inventing a substitute for good old fashion air (compressible gas).

 

wasnt there another tire innovation some time ago about using 2 small width tires on a single rim? it was like a semi trailer's set up and was supposed to have advantages over single wide tire esp in wet. this will probably have similar result

 

Those twin tires were a disaster. You could choose from 2 different rim designs, pay through the nose, and then discover all new sorts of handling deficiencies you never knew your car had. From what I understood, you may have been better just putting your car on a sled in winter. Same effect.

 

They need sidewalls for visible aesthetics, then people might be more likely to buy them. They wouldn't look good on an older Ferrari like mine without a sidewall. Very few people want to look quite that different.

 

Another problem was that they made a ton of noise.

 

Hope thay make them in 24" for my Impala junk!!!

 

Sweet. I saw that when I was watching "Future Cars" in Discovery Channel.

The should at least cover the side to make it look like a normal tire. It will ruin's the car's look with the kind of wheels on it.

 

I'm getting really sick of all the "Future Cars" shows on half the channels on DirecTV. What a massive PR campaign to tell people to get used to the idea of the slug boxes we *WILL* be driving in "the future" -- like it or not.

It makes me want to dust off an old Alfa 6C or get a Lotus 7 kit.

But I find it curious that my old, non politically correct, cat-free GTV-6 got better gas mileage on the highway than my 21st Century Mitsu 4-banger.

Around town, my cars get worse fuel mileage than the old "gas guzzlers" from the '60s.

Just what we need: a program for the "market analysts" to tell the "telephone sanitizers" what to drive.

 

From what I understand, the sidewall-less tire shown in the picture is just a cut-away to show the technology. The production tires would have sidewalls.

 

It should have sidewalls for no other reason than aerodynamics. I think these could be better than conventional tires. My hotwheels has had them for decades and it still rides true.

Gene