These tires are airless and are scheduled to be out on the market very soon.

The bad news for law enforcement is that spike strips will not work on these tires.

This is what great R&D will do, and just think of the impact on existing technology:

A. no more air valves...
B. no more air compressors at gas stations...
C. no more repair kits... ; ; ; ;
D. no more flats...

 

Actually, you missed out on a couple of the best aspects of these:


For OE specification, the car manufacturer can now tune the vertical and lateral components of the tire separately, since they are performed by different areas of the tweel (their name, not mine). With pneumatic tires, both components are controlled by the sidewall and inflation pressure with an inverse relationship. What this will enable is combinations which, until know, were pretty much impossible - i.e. supercar levels of grip with a compliant ride.

There are also significant benefits for the ride quality of low profile tires (35/30) and you may start to see 25 profile tweels, and likewise higher profile (50+) tires will be able to perform a bit better.

As for being available on cars, unless something has changed, it's still a few years out. The early applications for them were low stress low inertia applications, and working towards high stress high inertia applications (think race cars and airplanes).

 

It'll require new wheel designs, and when the aftermarket companies finally catch up so you can buy an expensive set of 19s, the local tire-installer will scratch them all to &@*^ just like they always do.

 

Tweels are premanently mounted to the wheel. Basically, if you want new wheels, you'll have to get the tweel with it.

 

Yes, they are combined, but there will be shops that can mount and balance the outer tread of the tweels. It's an inevitable necessity to sustain the market.

 

wow i was just talking about this iwth a co -worker haha cool

 

seems like this is gonna be great and like you said "no flats" however since the inside is held together and moves to take bumbs i can see those falling apart. actually when i think about it if that happens it will be worse cause you wont have a repair kit to fill it up and ride to the nearest shop you'll pretty much be stuck where you are. but as for grip and stuff these look like they will perform great.