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Comment by masklinn | Hacker News Reader

It's way beyond that.

1. it makes changing a tire more complicated, and time is money, the longer it takes to change a blown tire the higher the penalties

2. when a semi tire goes, it goes hard, as GP noted with this arrangement the cowling will probably shatter, requiring a replacement (not just a replacement tire) and the pieces taking out other tire. If the cowling does not break, it will funnel bits of tire straight into the next tires, blowing all of them.

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If a truck tire blows, it sometimes hits nearby cars and causes accidents, or just hits a motorcycle driver, cyclist or pedestrian and causes an instant death.

These covers could be useful, if they were made for containment. Requires something like kevlar that can stretch and absorb the impact.

Like so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-k6_zuno88#t=28s

From what I've seen tires don't really blow as in pieces everywhere but tear then slap around, retreads when they blow tend to remove all the tread which is why you see half a tread on the side of the road sometimes. Containment isn't really too much of an issue IMO. Even thick (3/8) aluminum fenders get destroyed.

When a rear tire blew on my campervan, in addition to having to replace the tire, the blowout caused many thousands of Euros worth of damage to the bodywork.

I would think mechanics are going to become fewer and fewer as less mechanical bits exist on the electric vehicles. Tires, alignment, electrical. Those will be you're bread+butter services.

Have you seen (2) happen with the existing aftermarket products like this?

when a semi tire goes...

... it's usually because the company was too cheap to buy anything but retreads.

Retreads don't fail appreciably more often than new tires. Being in the boring part of the bathtub curve makes up for their age.

DOT HS 811 060 is the study you should Google.

So any given tire carcass I'm likely to see on the road -- hopefully in time to dodge it -- is just as likely to be from a new tire as from a retread?

Sorry, not buying it.

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