I'm sure everyone in the tire industry (?) knows that, but it would be nice if Michelin had something to suggest that on their page.
The only little clue is that one photo of the EV where the sidewalls are visible on the tires. You have to squint to see it :)
Totally missed that on first reading, thank you for pointing it out.
good catch!
I guess the point is if they can be removed for demonstrations, then they're not critical to the structure.
They may be for real world usage, you dont want rocks or sticks getting inside
Absolutely, my point was that if you can remove them for this sort of demo, then if they get damaged by a pothole then it's probably easy to replace them.
The demo tires shown here don't have "removable" sidewalls. They were manufactured without them. The production tires will be one piece, like normal tires.
Sidewalls are critical for NVH at higher speeds, as well as fuel economy. But a demo of a tire on a car going 55 mph doesn't make sense, so they are able to remove the sidewalls for these stationary photoshoots and low speed rolling tests.