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Comment by jaclaz | Hacker News Reader

>Through its Vision Concept, the company wants to make tires that are airless, rechargeable, connected, and sustainable.

1) airless, check.

2) rechargeable ??

3) connected ??

4) sustainable ??

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>rechargeable

>sustainable

"retreadable" but the marketing department didn't think that had sufficient appeal for the demographics the press release was targeted it.

It's common for aircraft and other heavy duty equipment's tires to be retreaded. Seems like a reasonable thing to do on passenger vehicles if it can be scaled.

It used to be done for passenger car tires. A quick search says one can still find recapped tires if determined. But why isn't it more common, when it was common about 40-50 years ago? Well, that time began to approach the time I spent as a mechanic, and the reason was cheap, imported tires that were starting to come out of Asian factories. I can sell you a retread, or you can have a brand new tire from some off-brand for about the same money, and guess which was chosen more often?

This link seems to line up with what I remember from 40 years ago:

https://www.treadwright.com/blogs/treadwright-blog/are-retre...

If the Michelin's are built with retreading in mind, should work fine. After all, it always did before. :-)

It's also common for semis to shed retreads at highway speeds. Having hit one on the highway, no thanks. We don't need more highway missiles and debris, which is precisely what would happen if retreads were common on passenger vehicles.

This was the number one problem with retreads for the trucking industry, and most mechanics viewed retreads as cheap (the bad kind of cheap), low quality ways to keep trucks rolling, preferring new wherever possible.

Perhaps the tech has matured some, but I doubt it. You're still attempting to bond two different soft materials.

I haven't done too much long distance driving since COVID hit but I remember seeing shed retreads last time I was on the interstate. I always thought it was amazing that semis could get away with shedding them and driving away leaving at the least trash on the side of the road and at worst causing a dangerous accident.

Well, they don't really "get away" with shedding them. It's the equivalent of a blowout. Part of the reason they have such a bad reputation among semi mechanics.

Something like 45% of commercial tires are retreads and something like 90% of large fleets use retreads (https://www.worktruckonline.com/10128897/last-miles-growing-..., https://www.tirereview.com/revisiting-consumer-retreads/).

On the other hand, I'm not sure about retreading tires with higher speed ratings.

yeah, that feels about right for all of the swerving required to avoid running over the retreads that have let go and now lay in the middle of the highways.

Rechargeable: Adding tread.

Connected: Reports tread status and configuration, e.g. to inform the driver that he should change to a winter tire tread.

Sustainable: Recycled and recyclable.

>Connected: Reports tread status and configuration, e.g. to inform the driver that he should change to a winter tire tread.

That sounds like everything that's terrible about printer ink but with the decimal moved once to the right.

I can imagine a world where your tires stop working because you had them re-treaded with a tread pattern or the OEM won't honor a warranty item because you didn't use an approved brand of retread.

Truck tires are retreaded all the time. It’s why you see bits of tread on the highway. They do fall off now and then.

Apparently saves a lot of money.

Tires where purchasing decisions are driven almost exclusively by cost per time or distance are routinely retreaded. But that does not describe the passenger car tire market.

Doesn't it? I mean, I get that some people want to try a different make/model of tire when replacing it for performance/noise/appearance, I've been one of those people at times.

But I also think there are plenty of people who get the tire that's available to them and reducing the cost per year of use would be welcome.

I will say that having an EV, the cost of tires really stands out. In 60K miles the only maintenance expenses I've had have been tires and a windshield. Even the ongoing cost of charging is basically invisible (plug in at home, free on the road), so tires have been about half the money I've put into it, it feels like.

I remember retreads being a thing you could buy for your car in the 1970s/80s. I remember local radio ads from retread shops. I haven't heard of passenger car retreads in decades though, so I don't think it's really done anymore.

In New Zealand you could get tyres retreaded decades ago, however it was banned for light vehicles, due to safety reasons I believe.

Truck and specialty tyres in NZ still get retreaded by a company called Bandag, and you sometimes see detached tread at the side of the road. I am guessing that retreads are only allowed for dual tyres on trailers, where if a tyre fails it isn’t catastrophic. I imagine they are not allowed for the critical front steering/braking tyres on the tractor unit.

Surely it saves a lot of rubber waste too? Like 90%+ of the rubber mass of a typical tire must be in the parts that never contact the road and therefore should be good forever?

Unfortunately not the case. Tires go through lots of heat and stress cycles. I think most of the heat a tire generates isn't from friction with the road, even. It's internal friction within the tire itself. The carcasses are made of wires/meshes/layers of aramids/steel/aluminum and aren't indestructible, even if durable.

And the rubber on the sidewalls gets degraded by sun/dirt/sand/etc, too.

True, true. But from the picture in the article, it sure looks like there's a heck of a lot less rubber overall in this tire— so regardless of what it's been historically, this is a step toward a tire that "consumes" way, way less rubber per X distance of driving, whether due to less rubber being in it overall, or it being able to be recharged with additional tread before being disposed of.

Don't forget fridges:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28478438

Will single tyres e-mail you singularly or as a group?

I mean:

Hi, I am your left front tyre and wished to tell you how ...

or:

We, the tyres of your car, have determined that ...

Personally I welcome our new Tyrius Cybernetics Corporation overlords.

It might work similar to low pressure, where you see the wheel light up on the dashboard. Ofcourse the human part can make the decision on what to do about it, and if you want to replace tyres, how many at once.

Your printer running out of ink does not have an associated risk of death and injury. Tire wear does.

Existing air-filled tires are already "connected" on modern vehicles - pressure sensors that link to the vehicle's on-board diagnostics and inform the driver of low pressure, often before there's any other visible, audible, or mechanical indication that the tire has a leak.

Modern cars have tons of sensors but none of them are in the consumable parts such as tires[+]. It's important because it means you can use any consumables (gas, oil, coolant, washer liquid, tires) as long as they meet objective physical requirements the car expects.

If the tires provide enough traction and are of the correct size then any modern car will work with them fine. "Connected" tires sounds like there is a direct (as opposed to the car measuring the tire's shape in the TPMS from your example) information exchange between the tire and the car, something that does not happen now and appears to be susceptible to the same marketing practices printer manufacturers use.

[+] Some cars have "sensors" in the brake pads, which amounts to a wire loop inside the pad, which gets cut as the pad wears down, owners of these cars are not happy about this "feature".

>"Connected" tires sounds like there is a direct (as opposed to the car measuring the tire's shape in the TPMS from your example) information exchange between the tire and the car, something that does not happen now

Michelin sells a tire mounted TPMS, also available pre-installed.

https://business.michelinman.com/construction-industry/servi...

Not for cars, though. There is probably a market for tire monitoring in mining equipment, which is probably not constructed with the same built-in systems that consumer cars have.

You are incorrect. Most modern cars have TPMS to tell you when a tire is losing air. There are two ways to do it. Either you use the same signals ABS uses to tell how fast each wheel is spinning and look at the tire which spins at a different speed.

The other way is to have actual pressure sensors inline with the valves that wirelessly communicate with a system in the car. This method has the upside of allowing you to see constant tire pressure values on all four tires at all times. The downside is that it is more expensive, it's something that must be managed when you get tires or wheels changed, the batteries run out, you often have to pair each wheel-sensor to the car separately so that it knows which sensor is which wheel...

This is an example system: https://www.ebay.com/itm/402816216014?epid=21038233158&_trkp...

I am not sure if you replied to the correct message but I did mention that modern cars have TPMS. If you are actually arguing against my description of the principles this system works on (monitoring the wheel shape through the rotation speed) then perhaps you should have not posted a link to sensors for such a system. I somehow don't see how a passive device can monitor any pressure least communicate wirelessly. But even if such system existed it would still have been mounted in the wheel, not in the tire on modern cars.

If I'm reading your posts correctly, you're saying that tire pressure sensors are not mounted in tires of common cars. This may be true in EU and other places where I think monitoring rotation rate of each wheel is typical; in USA, as far as I can tell, most tire pressure monitors are indeed wireless devices mounted inside the tires in connection with the valve stem. This is the case with my car, which is an American variant.

I am in the USA, all cars I have seen here have valve stem in the wheels (rims). What kind of car you have that has valves in the tire?

"Your printer running out of ink does not have an associated risk of death and injury."

I'm sure the printer manufacturers can remove some hardware interlocks to make using manufacturer ink safety-critical.

Plain old TPMS is finnicky enough, I can imagine this would have plenty more problems.

It's only terrible because we've created a system that incentivizes it being made purposely terrible for profit. The idea that your tires can monitor their own wear should be a good thing.

A very small fraction of plastics are recyclable. I highly doubt whatever this tire is, it's not recyclable.

They answered that part: using recycled plastic and making the tyre recyclable and organic(!) are “in the future”

Reducing the amount of particulate pollution, however, is apparently not part of the remit.

This is not true. Essentially, all plastics are recyclable, and it merely depends on the technology available.

I guess that depends on how you define recyclable. I mean really, everything recycles given a long enough time frame.

I mean recyclable in a conventional sense the way most people understand it.

Energy cost is probably the single biggest obstacle for the technology I mentioned above. Renewable energy is changing this.

Most plastics will soon be a part of an efficient closed loop system. Regulations are driving some of this. However, the real driver is that these systems are incredibly profitable, and serve risk and resource management priorities as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon and others started accepting plastics and paper returns. Their consumption is massive and they already have a logistics closed loop in place.

Plastics are an incredible innovation and a valuable resource. Misinformation about their recyclability is a threat to their stewardship.

The technology may exist to recycle plastics, but at least where I live, there is No infrastructure for it to happen. So no, it isn’t recyclable in reality.

Can you point me to something that describes these closed loop systems? What you are saying sounds like a paid advertisement.

The section on investments in technology and chemical recycling is probably most relevant to our discussion:

https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/nl/pdf/2021/sectoren/gr...

Anecdotally, those that are leading these investments and innovations are aggressive about it.

Official info on those 4 points:

https://www.michelin.com/en/innovation/vision-concept/

It is a company vision, not a product announcement, so as expected much of it is fuzzy and hypothetical, and it may or may not apply to this particular product.

But this part offers a clearer idea of what rechargeable means:

> The tread can be “recharged” using a 3D printer, which means that VISION can be adapted to motorists’ changing needs, for maximum comfort, safety and sustainability.

They also have an official page for this actual product line, which is called Uptis (Unique Puncture-Proof Tire System):

https://michelinmedia.com/michelin-uptis/

The FAQ on this latter page says stuff relevant to sustainability:

> Today’s level of rolling resistance is about the same as a zero-pressure (“run flat”) tire

...

> Uptis will have the same mileage of a standard tire.

I believe this is an important part of sustainability because if mileage were worse, you'd gain in one area (reduced waste) and lose in another (increased energy usage). So if mileage really is the same, that's a good thing.

5) diverse

...and then you've got something.

I'm actually surprised that I've never seen a tire with some kind of closed-cell super lightweight foam, some kind of aerogel maybe. I suppose the problem in that case is that you can't spread heat throughout the whole interior.

Which makes me wonder, how do they radiate heat on this Michelin? Does it stick around the outer surface and that's it? Do the 'spokes' bear it away somehow?

In the off-road motorcycle industry there are these tubes called mousse bibs. I run them on all my bikes. They do replace the inner tubes, not the tires themselves. But they work great and are the best anti-flat solution out there. They sound similar to what you’re talking about. Michelin makes them too.

https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/michelin-bib-mousse-tire...

I have something similar for my mountain bike, CushCore. They don't replace inner tubes (tubeless setup) but they do add a lot of protection, dampening and deflection.

The name “Bib mousse” was created by Michelin - Bib is short for Bibendum, which is the name of the Michelin man, and mousse is French for foam.

Re 3: Michelin has a "track connect" for their track tires ( https://www.michelinman.com/auto/why-michelin/technological-...)

I haven't used it, and most serious track rats have a separate data system so the track connect features are potentially redundant, but I assume that it's an MVP of what a consumer product might look like in the future.

The embedded video seems to show that you can 3d-print on top of an existing tire, which would let you "recharge" for a certain number of km. It's also more sustainable that way.

Hmmm, I doubt about the actual duration of something just 3D printed over, in the sense of adhesion, I remember the process to join (rubber based) watertight expansion joints and it involved (after preparation of surfaces and application of adhesive) some half hour pressed into a heated aluminium cast. (and the procedure is similar AFAIK for retreading tyres currently in use)

On the other hand, they were common in Italy in the '70's and '80's, there were truck tyres that instead of being re-treaded with the "hot" process above were thinned and grooved on a sort of lathe and then a monolithic external "ring" that included the tread on the outside and matching grooves inside was applied, when the tyre was inflated the grooves and the pression made the two stay together (until the tyre was punctured, it was not so rare that you could find on roads these outer rings lost by some truck that had a flat wheel).

Buzzword stuffing.

With regard to sustainable, well, I guess they could return to the jungles of Malaysia and Brazil for caoutchouc…

1) airless?? there's air within the wheel spokes pressurized to 1 atm

#3 you'll end up paying $200/tire plus a monthly fee to use them. Upgrade to premium and get unlimited mileage plus insights on how you can be a better driver!

more like insights for your insurer on how much to jack up your premiums.

I guess as part of this subscription plan they'll call you forty five times a day trying to get you to upgrade the warranty on the tires. At least there are a lot of qualified contractors they can outsource that to!

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