Why Airless Tires Kinda Suck

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I had the chance for a tour of a tyre factory about 20 years ago - I’ve never complained about tyre prices since, they are frankly amazing for all their faults.

I see these being perfect spare tires. Never worrying about checking the pressure in it, and how strong it can be at a light weight, taking up a slightly smaller area in a boot.

What seems to be a better option here is a hybrid tire. An air-filled tire with enough of these "spokes" inside to make them safe to drive on in case of a blowout, since the primary goal here is to reduce fatalities from high speed blow outs and also provide the ability to get to a shop and not be stranded with a flat. Hopefully such a tire would perform mostly like a normal air-filled tire, but simply have enhanced safety and reliability.

My real concern is their performance on motorcycles. A big part of the reason we use air tires is because of the sidewall allowing for the lean, but it looks like these would compress too much, or have little to no grip as you lean on the bike.

I knew a man who worked for Armstrong Tires back in the early 1970's. While there he worked on a project to make tires that would never go flat using closed cell foam in place of air in the tire. When they were ready to Beta test the tires they selected a group of tire users who were particularly hard on tires, log truck operators. And a bunch of truck operators bought them with the guarantee that they would never go flat. The only problem was that even though the tires wouldn't go flat, the tread still had to be made of a compound soft enough to grip the road, so the tread would eventually wear out and the tire would have to be replaced. When the tires began to wear out the truck operators got mad and demanded a refund or threatened law suits because they thought "won't go flat" was the same as "lasts forever." And that's why every few years one tire company or another announces they have perfected tires that won't go flat but they never ever come on the market. They always find out that far too many people will equate "won't go flat" with "lasts forever" and either get mad when they wear out, or worse, drive them far past the point of being safe and then sue the tire company for the inevitable accident they have.

What no one seems to mention with these new concept design of airless tires is, what happens when debris get trapped in the spokes of the tires themselves? This would result in the tire being unbalanced and would be a major problem. Perhaps a thin wall of rubber covering the spokes is what would be needed for a consumer version of these tires, and all the concepts are open design to showcase the difference between these and regular air filled tires.

I've seen some lawnmowers that use airless tires, lets the lawn crew get over curbs very easily without it being a jarring transition. It was very neat.

I remember reading about these in popular mechanics 20 years ago, they were saying they should be on the market by 2010. At this point I feel like it's never going to happen

Well, the normal tires have close to a centuries worth of innovation and maturity, so these airless one have a lot of catching up to do, but the potential benefits are there. I guess it's more likely that some kind of hybrid will get more popular if it ever comes out, but it would be nice to have less waste with longer lasting tires, even if it means making a few concessions on the performance side.

I'm curious to see how it will work in winter conditions. I suspect there might be ice build up in the tire structure which may cause imbalance.

The tweel has found a good use on commercial mowing equipment. They don't go flat and traction is far less of an issue on relatively slow moving mowers. I don't see them overtaking pneumatic tires anytime soon.

Airless tires are awesome, had the privilege of driving a truck with them except the set i drove on had side walls. There was no over excessive roll and the drive was really smooth.

I can imagine a hybrid design where this concept is essentially fitted around a regular conventional tire

Honestly: I’d be happy with a airless tire that’s safe and reliable for 50K miles designed to stay under 90mph. I don’t drive faster that 85 anyway.

This Michelin effort has been in progress for a lot longer than 10 years. I was an engineer by trade, before retiring 20 years ago. I was involved in producing industrial tire yarns, used in the manufacture of pneumatic tires, and we were aware of Michelin's program about 30 years ago, since it threatened our business. I also once attended a conference on the design and development of pneumatic tires, and came away highly impressed with the level of sophisticated engineering. Tires are one of the most highly engineered and evolved composites in modern industry. It will be a real challenge to improve on at, while maintaining the level of performance and low cost. I don't expect it to happen very soon..

The thing that makes me turn down this technology is that pneumatic tires distributes the load evenly thorough the enire wheel because it's the air pressure inside the tire that transfers the load. With these aiirless type of tires no matter how efficient the support structure might be the force on the wheel will always be localized to the area where the tire meets the floor, this reduces the wheel's life dramatically. The best use for this thechnology is to merge both into one, having pneumatic tires with a mild supporting structure inside. Since now tire valves are equipped with pressure sensors you can get a tire popped but not end up stranded inmediately because the tire still works, albeit limited, with the sensor warning you of the tire failure so you can get it fixed or replaced.

consider , the standard "balloon" tyre exerts pressure equally in all directions , air causes the tyre to grip the rim , stopping it peeling off under cornering or "side load" conditions and braking , it also has volume but not "mass" hence the "light"weight, the airless tyre is heavy , has to have mechanical attachment to the rim and has a "dead" feel because of the "unsprung " weight , compressed air has a natural "spring"effect that counters this , plus the grip because of this "pressure"is something the airless will never have

I thought about also encasing the sides of these tires, so there would be a possibility of having these rubber structures and air inside the same tire, in case the tire gets punctured, the tire won’t be completely useless since the pressure would just go to the rubber structures inside

10 years? I’ve been seeing similar tyres concepts back when I used to read Popular Mechanics in the 90’s.