Tweel – Airless Wheel

[bjackman]

Love the comment about water evacuation through holes reducing hydroplaning.

I'd love to know what's holding these back. Perhaps it's just a higher cost:MTBF ratio, and one day it will surpass regular tyres. Perhaps they're really truly better, but pneumatic tyres are just Good Enough. Perhaps there's a fundamental flaw in the idea that only experts can see. Probably we'll never know.

[cc438]

They have a terrible NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) profile. The deformation of the tire in motion produces significantly more noise than a traditional tire due to the larger amount of material and greater stiffness required for the support structure. These high levels of "tire noise" are the main hold up for consumer applications as the tweel has caught on in low-speed applications when durability outweighs cost considerations.

[TehCorwiz]

The last time I read about these the main problems were replacement cost and ride comfort. It appears that Michelin already offers them in applications where ride comfort isn't an issue, such as riding mowers and skid-steer loaders.[0]

[0]:http://www.michelintweel.com/

[wmeredith]

The fundamental flaw of the twheel is well known: something gets stuck in the spokes (mud, gravel, etc) and they go out of balance. At highway speeds: best case scenario is annoying vibration; worst case scenario is dangerous loss of traction and/or broken suspension components.

Michelin currently has a factory that makes these for low speed industrial applications (e.g. a skid loader). We probably won't see them on dealership lots any time soon.

[greggyb]

From my prior reading, there are heat issues at speed and when they tested at highway speeds (if I recall correctly, on an Audi) there was alarming vibration past ~50mph.

I would buy these very quick of they entered the market.

[ch]

This looks great, and has some very compelling benefits. I'd be curious to know what their performance is likewhen caked in road ice like we get here in the northeast after a few rounds of snow clearing and melt and freeze cycles (the prototype on the Wikipedia shows the spoke pattern to be very deep).

[baldeagle]

just reads like a press release. All the positives are very positive, and the negatives are both very mild and eplained away as solved in later versions. For example they mention minde deflection and the possibility of reducing hydroplanning but do not mention noise or vibration issues at highway speeds.

[Involute]

"... the initial prototype automotive Tweel tires did demonstrate flaws with regard to noise and high speed vibration ..."

[jbob2000]

The entire automotive industry makes way too much money on tires for them to allow something like this to develop.

[binoyxj]

Reinventing the wheel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinventing_the_wheel