It's great from a packaging point of view if this gives a lot more room for electric motors and suspension to be packaged inside the wheel. Think how much more room you'd have inside the car? Or how much smaller it could be? Or how much lower the CoG is. And so on.
Alternatively, you could put some lips around the inside, seal one side of the wheel and put a door on the other, and you can do your laundry on the commute to work.