Puncture-proof tires are the future | Hacker News Reader

Puncture-proof tires are the future

popularmechanics.com

23 pointsbookofjoe23 comments

I feel like I've been reading about this tire design for as long as I've been reading about 20xx is the year of the linux desktop". I expect neither to happen.

You’re not wrong. These are called twheels and have been around for a couple decades. They were invented by Michelin in 2005 and started being sold commercially in '12. They have uses in controlled low speed environments like warehouses employing forklifts or lawn mowers. But they're Achilles heel in the wild is objects/matter (rocks, dirt, ice, snow) getting stuck in the spines and then they're out of balance and useless at speed. They're also loud at speed.

Popular mechanics has been talking about these being "the future" forever. They probably have a twheels article template by now.

They aren't the future, they're the present and have limited applications. They do look very cool, which I suspect is why they keep getting write ups.

Maybe I'm just a very lucky person, but my wife and I combined have driven probably close to a million miles and I can't recall having ever changed a tire road side. I can only recall maybe a few punctures ever, fortunately only causing a slow enough leak that it was discovered at home or the destination.

Still, with full-size spares having gone the way of the dodo and space-savers better than nothing but not that great, this is a welcome change as long as tire prices don't become exorbitant.

I put a solid rubber tire on my wheelbarrow years ago. It'll outlast the wheelbarrow. Greatest home garden purchase ever.

I’ve never had one and then got three within 6 months (two of which within one week).

Also you better replace them ASAP unless 30mins of tedious work is not worth $200 or so.

> "Still, with full-size spares having gone the way of the dodo"

This bugs me. It's probably fine in most situations, but I drove across Canada last year and I felt obliged to have a full-sized spare in the back seat the entire way, taking up space. I didn't feel like I could trust one of those "donut" spares on long sparsely traveled roads like that.

The article mentions ride comfort which is well and good, but what about efficiency? I don't see mention of rolling resistance / efficiency, which I understand to be a problem with existing puncture-proof/run-flat tire systems.

Apologies for a tangential comment, but I laughed at the fact that all of the ads I am shown when viewing this article are for tires.

tubeless sealants in a tire make sense.

non-pneumatic tires are one of those Things that keep coming up and keep being a very stupid idea.

Can you elaborate?

If you have a pneumatic tire, the entire air volume of the tire is your first shock absorber; even before you have to care about suspension design, you're chopping out high frequency chatter and broadband impacts.

If you have a solid tire, only the arc between the axle and your contact patch is the shock absorber, and the rest of the tire remains relatively unperturbed and unable to contribute to smoothing out the road.

This results in a harsh ride.

Often, to get a tire compound to be sufficiently durable to work well in a solid tire, you have to sacrifice the ability to maintain grip over a reasonable operating temperature and road conditions. This also contributes to reduction of ride quality, and makes operating in wet or freezing temperatures potentially quite sketchy.

> tubeless sealants in a tire make sense.

Does it?

They pay constant NVH penalties for the life of the tire, cost more and sacrifice performance, all to soften the impact of an exceptional event.

And it's not like you can't insert sealant into non-run flat tires in the event of an accident.

The overlap between type of damage that won't destroy a run-flat, but precludes you from using canned sealant after a puncture, is tiny to the point of practically being non-existant.

It's pretty much just marketing when they mention being able to run on their sidewalls if the sealant fails, because most impact that does that much damage will also damage your wheels, and even if it doesn't you'll put extreme stresses on your suspension if you take advantage of it.

And there's also the fact once you get to the tire shop, they're much harder to find, and can easily lead to a situation where you need to replace multiple tires if you want to get back on the road in a reasonable amount of time. That's a sacrifice some other tires make as well, but usually in the name of performance, making that sacrifice in the name of convenience is a little bit of a paradox

I suppose i should say that they make more sense than solid tires -- at least in some circumstances.

Different world, but tubeless-with-sealant has more or less taken over mid- to high-end mountain bikes. Lower pressures help prevent rim blowouts as well as allow you to fully exploit grip on unstable terrain, and then you don't need to care about sharp rocks or thorns or goatheads or whatever as much. The idea doesn't translate as well to road bikes, which have (even now) very high pressures -- usually 75 -- 120 psi.

The "sealant spooges you in the face" problem is certainly a real one. I don't have sealant in my car or motorcycle tires, but if i did i would warn the mechanics beforehand!

> Surely you've seen the light

No? I don't think I've ever had or see a flat tyre. Seems like the kind of thing that only happens in movies. Doesn't seem like a problem in practice.

I used to think verbatim what you just said, until a tyre burst on a rental car while I was doing 80mph on a motorway. Was not a fun day.

Come visit Philly — eat a cheesesteak, see some art, pop a tire!

Probably any city in the northeast during or right after winter will have plenty of tire popping potholes.

It absolutely happens.

For me it happened on a rental car as well. The likelihood of occurrence probably correlates with level of tire wear, so perhaps it is indeed rare if you stay ahead with your car maintenance.

> The likelihood of occurrence probably correlates with level of tire wear

Or sometimes infrastructure degradation. I had a friend blow out an otherwise healthy, relatively new low profile tire on an unseen Los Angeles pothole.

>I don't think I've ever had or see a flat tyre. Seems like the kind of thing that only happens in movies. Doesn't seem like a problem in practice.

I'm truly baffled by this. I would honestly guess that I see someone changing a tire on the side of the road once per month. Have you ever seen blown tire strips like these littering the highways? https://rvlifestyle.com/blown-truck-tires-serous-highway-haz...

I've been driving for about 16 years and I have only had a tire blow out on me 2 times while driving, but a few other times I've walked up to my car in the morning to find a flat tire that was punctured, but slow enough of a leak that I was able to make it home the previous night.

Three days after I put on the winter tires back in late November, we got a slow puncture warning from the car.

When changing the tires we found a fairly sizable screw that had poked it way through. We were about to drive to our mountain cabin, a trip which includes several hours on the highway and ending up in a remote place, so was rather pleased with the warning.

Bummer about the tires though, were about to start their second season, but being studless they were worn enough that just changing the one would be an issue.

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