https://www.topgear.com/car-news/future-tech/airless-tyres-will-be-thing-2024



New tyre physics?

I read about this this week aswell
I am still a bit suspicious about the technology, but in the end, it goes for the way that more and more people never worrying about their tires' pressure.

Maybe it's easier to simulate than a standard tyres.

crazy idea but if it deforms so easily going over a stone/rock id hate to imagine it hitting a stone/rock while going 50/60 mph

Pretty much the same as the following image(for zero turn mowers)

The actual tyre will look like a normal tyre, this cross-section is just to show how it works.

It is far from crazy, it is much safer than an air-filled tyre and will be the standard production tyre within three years.

It's called progress. No more petrol, no more tyre blow outs or thread depth to worry about. Just progress.

Quote from petercollins :

It's called progress. No more petrol

Consider this:

Quote :

There are an estimated 1 billion passenger cars in the world.

Even if car makers produced only EVs at today’s pace (~70mil/yr), and every EV sold meant one ICE car destroyed, it would take 14.3 years.

Considering today’s production of ~1mil EVs per year, it would take 1000 years to replace them all. This yearly figure will certainly rise, but even if production magically rose 30 fold, it would take at least 30 years.

With Tesla’s current Gigafactory battery output of approx. 22GWh (theoretical max of 35GWh) of batteries, which is good for about 100 thousand Model 3s annually, it would take 10 thousand years to produce the needed batteries, or someone would have to build 700 Gigafactories within a few decades.

A 70kWh battery consists of 12kg of lithium, among other materials. In 2018, 85 thousand metric tons of litium were produced. 85 milion kgs of lithium is good for about 7 million cars, if used only for car batteries. Yearly production of lithium would have to be at least be 10 fold.

None of this accounts for other types of vehicles, nor does it account for highly populated parts of the world with low median income, where the median age of cars is 20+ years and where a majority of people simply cannot buy a new car, let alone an EV for almost double the price.

Quote from petercollins :

The actual tyre will look like a normal tyre, this cross-section is just to show how it works.

It is far from crazy, it is much safer than an air-filled tyre and will be the standard production tyre within three years.

It's called progress. No more petrol, no more tyre blow outs or thread depth to worry about. Just progress.

If it deforms so easily as in the pictures it would be far from safe, as i shown in my picture,it is nothing new with airless tyres being around already for a while, commonly used on sit on lawn mowers(zero turn) made by michelin(not referencing it due to how it looks but rather by the actual structure used inside to strengthen it

Also "no thread depth to worry about" ? please explain

(btw they state 5 years)


@cutie pie - excellent information there very interesting indeed

following quote makes sense also

"Sounds good in theory, but there isn't a tire company in the world whose shareholders will allow this to happen unless there is a "benefit" for those shareholders. (i.e.-more profits) That means only 1 thing. These tires have to be "more profitable per unit" which I surmise means "more expensive" than conventional tires since apparently one of the goals is to reduce the number of tires produced. No tire company will deliberately cut their own profits in order to produce a new product that will reduce profits, no matter how great the product might be."

It the product is really much better, new company may emerge, producing only new stuff, thus making more profit than before (nothing), and beating old companies (with better product), which will force whole market to shift. So theoretically this is not an issue in free market (real world is lot more complicated than this as always).

But AFAIK airless tires are not a new thing, IIRC BMW did mount them for some time as mandatory choice on some models... IIRC they are considerably more noisy and bump the gasoline usage a tiny bit, but you don't need to have to reserve wheel, so you have more space in trunk.

Quote from Ped7g :

But AFAIK airless tires are not a new thing, IIRC BMW did mount them for some time as mandatory choice on some models... IIRC they are considerably more noisy and bump the gasoline usage a tiny bit, but you don't need to have to reserve wheel, so you have more space in trunk.

Run-flat tires that come standard on some BMWs are not airless - they just have reinforced sidewall. They still can deflate due to a puncture or a cut, but afterwards they can get you home (up to 150 km at speeds up to 80 km/h).

A tyre filled with air feels a genius idea compared to this one. I just cant take this serious.

But look ugly

It depends of the design - it can be ugly or mind blowing, in my opinion these 'new' tyres looks exciting and satisfying.

Quote from GT4_PL :

But look ugly

They will probably be closed up with regular sidewalls later on.

Also does this mean tires will have less side-flex in the future? Or will they just shatter under extreme sideway loads when racing?

All I see is a gimmick. These will not hold up on any type of large vehicle. There will always be a need for air filled tires. These will not be a huge game-changer. Minor at best for EVs and low mileage drivers at best. You will still have premature replacements with these because a lot of people do not do proper maintenance on their cars (alignment, struts, joints, etc). Nothing to see here but fancy dreams without true real world thought put into it.

Seeing that this tire has no side board makes me think that the lateral flex is minimal or zero and zero camber(or near zero) will give maximum grip in a corner.

Quote from Evolution_R :

It depends of the design - it can be ugly or mind blowing, in my opinion these 'new' tyres looks exciting and satisfying.

Far from new, been in production with michellin since approx 2005

Heres a video from 2014 showing that they are pretty useful on machinery such a forklifts, diggers ect



and another from 2014 when it was proposed

The ability to be able to independently tune for lateral stiffness versus vertical deflection could be used to great benefit on off-road racing. I'm not sure why these aren't more mainstream yet.

Quote from Bob Smith :

The ability to be able to independently tune for lateral stiffness versus vertical deflection could be used to great benefit on off-road racing. I'm not sure why these aren't more mainstream yet.

I could definitley see the benefit for off-road use, such as hill climbing, the current use is kinda off-road being sit on lawn mowers and factory machinery