Airless Tire for Your Car: Michelin Says 2024, Here’s What They’re Up Against

hackaday.com

19 points·heshiebee··5 comments

How can eliminating "punctures, flats, and blowouts" "promise to improve tire longevity significantly" if the fraction of ordinary tires that are prematurely destroyed is small?

The article says airless tires will allow the elimination of spares, but that's already been happening, on the basis that flats are in fact rare.

And the thickness of the tread can't be greatly increased without greatly increasing the weight and decreasing the compliance. So the time to wear out can't be much longer.

So I don't understand how it makes any sense to say these will improve longevity significantly.

Edit:

And another thing - they say that being able to replace the tread would have "huge sustainability ramifications". But "retreads" are a thing with conventional tires.

I'm not arguing that there is no point to airless tires, really - who knows. But it annoys me that the reasons given for them don't seem like reasons.

I recall trying some tires of this exact basic design for bicycles 25-30 years ago and while the idea sounded nice, they were loud, heavy, and clogged up. It seems the same downsides are still an issue.

I had not thought of the issue of noise. Assuming you have similar tread, and a similar contact patch to existing tires, wouldn't noise remain similar?

If I recall the assumed cause was wind and the open structure of the tire. I don't know how much contact area and material was impacted the sound. Noise seems to come up anytime these tires are mentioned. The article posted doesn't delve into it. Just a light mention of noise being a factor discussed before.

Oh, that makes sense. Like blowing across the top of a bottle. Those spokes may end up acting like reds as they spin at high speed. Interesting!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com