
Michelin Rolls Out an Airless Tire That Will Be “Puncture-Proof” - Ultramanoid
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a27728995/michelin-airless-tire-uptis/
======
nimbius
speaking as an automotive mechanic for a chain of small midwest shops, this
technology has existed for almost a century. What the article should specify
is that Michelin intends to offer a motor vehicle version of this technology,
which I think is probably going to be disaster for a few reasons:

1\. weight. anything thats supposed to handle interstate speeds and offer
comfort is going to be heavy as it will need to be durable. id be surprised if
these tweels show up with the longevity of a standard all-weather radial. Id
be even more surprised if drivers dont pull into the service station for more
esoteric repairs like CV joints, brakes or idler/pitman assembly changeouts as
this is common in vehicles that upgrade to more rugged tires.

2\. partial failure. Most people dont want to spend money on a new tire if its
40% worn and a hole or cut is in the tread. Typically a bubblegum type or
kevlar patch is applied for $30 to the tire, which keeps it rolling intil its
worn enough to replace. How do you repair a tweel thats received curb strike
damage or a sharp object?

For those who have pointed out, yes, fork trucks and fork lifts commonly use
solid tires, but thats largely due to how they work. Many forklifts can hoist
in excess of 40 tons, so it makes sense to have a tire that doesnt readily
compress. Its why big trucks have to have more tubeless tires for larger
loads. The plastic or rubber tires on forklifts also have a quick re-tread
option. The tires often dont even need to be removed, as they have more treads
that can be created by pulling out zip-tie like spacers in the worn tread.
other models use a hot-iron type re-treader. that being said, forklift tires
are very heavy and so are the wheels, and neither last very long at full-
speed.

~~~
tempguy9999
> The [forklift] tires often dont even need to be removed, as they have more
> treads that can be created by pulling out zip-tie like spacers in the worn
> tread

Wow, that's clever. But it does make me ask, tread is AFAUI for dealing with
water on the ground, and I guess also when the vehicle's going at speed.

Forklifts AFAIK operate mainly indoors, and even then they never get up to any
speed that I've ever seen, so why treads at all?

~~~
nimbius
forklifts sometimes exit warehouses and load flatbed trucks, not to mention
some manufacturing facilities may have areas with slick floors or areas where
rain may reach (near the docks mainly) so tread is generally provided.
speaking from experience, the tread can help with gravel patches too.

you can order treadless tires as well.

------
wmeredith
At first glance I can’t tell how this overcomes the problems of the “Tweel”
because it looks just like it
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweel)).
Also made by Michelin, Tweels are really loud at high speed and they easily
pick up stuff in their open sidewall structure leading to out of balance
issues at speed-vibration. So they’ve mostly been deployed in low-speed, low-
debris environments, like on forklifts in warehouses.

This looks like a different structural fin design, so maybe they’ve fixed the
noise issue, but you still have an open sidewall to fill with mud, ice, rocks,
etc...

~~~
eliben
I wonder why they can't just close off the outer walls with rubber same as in
regular tires.

~~~
masklinn
I guess it would be very difficult to create the internal structure, and
especially keep the internal structure separated from the sidewall (which
would make the entire thing undesirably rigid)?

~~~
Doxin
Regular tires are already many-layered laminates, Gluing on a sidewall on this
tire shouldn't be technically all that hard.

My guess is it'd keep the air in which you don't want with an airless tire.

~~~
logfromblammo
Why not?

Just add a valve that allows air out if the interior pressure rises more than
x% above ambient atmospheric pressure, and allows air in through a filter if
it's more than y% below. It wouldn't be that much more complex than the stem
valves already added to tires.

The primary goal is to keep contaminants out of the interior tire structure,
but a secondary marketing goal should probably be to make them look like
normal tires at first glance. Wrapping the internal structure in something
that looks like "normal tire" serves both.

~~~
Doxin
Once you add in valves to let air in and out you run into the exact same
fouling problems. Snow, small pebbles, road grit, any one of a number of
things is at some point going to get sucked into that cavity. Normal stem
valves avoid the problem by having a screw-on cap, which'd hardly work for a
valve that needs to be passing air all the time.

------
dsfyu404ed
I suspect these are going to be much more sensitive to overloading than normal
tires since they're gonna be specifically matched to the vehicle weight
(unlike a pneumatic tire which can carry far more than vehicle but is simply
inflated to a specific pressure for NVH/handling) you can't just air them up
by a few pounds. You can't add more pressure to a non-pneumatic tire so it's
simply going to deform more and generate more heat if you add more load.
There's no good way around that.

One of the nice things about a pneumatic tire is that you can air down if you
need low ground pressure. I guess that goes out the window too.

These will probably work really well in some use cases but barring some
massive groundbreaking improvement I wouldn't expect to see these replacing
conventional pneumatic tires over the next decade or two.

Edit: I'm talking about these tires in the general case, not specifically as
they exist on a Bolt.

~~~
eganist
> I suspect these are going to be much more sensitive to overloading than
> normal tires since they're gonna be specifically matched to the vehicle
> weight (unlike a pneumatic tire which can carry far more than vehicle but is
> simply inflated to a specific pressure for NVH/handling) you can't just air
> them up by a few pounds.

Interestingly, there's only 845lbs wiggle room on these tires as installed on
the Chevy Bolt assuming the standard Bolt configuration at 3,563lbs and the
carrying capacity of the tire at 1,102lbs. After accounting for your average
American family of four (or just the weight of two men and two women) at
728lbs, you're left with 117lbs for the fifth person or belongings.

...so even if they're prototypes, I hope they've been over-engineered. That
said, I want them to succeed.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
800lb is a perfectly normal capacity for anything built on a passenger car
platform. Considering the bolt is a subcompact I'd actually say having ~800lb
of "OEM approved"[0] capacity actually seems pretty good. I suspect most of
that stems from having to build a beefier car to carry around those batteries
100% of the time while not having an unreasonably short service life for
suspension components.

In showroom configuration 99.99% of vehicles are only spec'd with tires that
barely exceed the GWVR.

That said, with a pneumatic tire you can just air it up higher than the OEM
tells you to and you're good for more GVW at the expense of the tire wearing
faster. Obviously you need to be reasonable about it but tires are pretty
durable even over their stated weight rating as long as you don't run them hot
(airing up reduces flex therefore reducing heat).

It will be very interesting to see if they come out in other sizes/capacities.
They already make similar tires for off road use but they aren't suitable for
road speeds (go figure)

[0] [https://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?276641-What-is-
Bolt...](https://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?276641-What-is-Bolt-EV-
weight-
capacity-\(GVWR\)&s=1959a18499d799c25ea6f5a1d2580a16&p=3875441#post3875441)

~~~
saalweachter
For another data point, the Subaru Forester - which is more of a light SUV -
only has a max passenger+cargo load of 900lbs.

------
hirundo
> Theoretically, the tread life for the Uptis is the same as a standard tire

Imagine the disaster a much longer tread life on this tire would be to
Michelin and tire shops. Even if Michelin could maintain their profit with
proportionately higher prices, tire shops would be hammered by a long life
tire.

I'm not claiming that such a tread is out there and being suppressed. But if
it were a plausible but expensive engineering problem there would be a great
incentive, especially by market leaders like Michelin, not to pursue it.

But wouldn't it be wonderful to buy a car with tires that are expected to last
as long as the rest of the car. I can dream.

~~~
chrisseaton
> tire shops

Do you get shops in the US that do nothing but tyres?

I think you also have shops that just do oil changes?

Why split all these jobs up? In the UK I take my car to one shop, once a year,
and they do it all in a couple of hours.

~~~
bluGill
Because the jobs don't need to be done at the same time or by the same people.
Specialization is a very useful way to get something faster better AND
cheaper.

Oil changes places are setup to make oil changes fast and easy: there is a pit
in the floor, and someone in there at all times. When you pull for your oil
change he has the right wrench on your engine almost before you turn it off,
and is only waiting for "go" to start letting the oil out. The guy on top is
meanwhile looking up the oil filter (which they have in stock: they turn
inventory fast enough that accountants don't worry about this cost) and how
much oil to put in. When the oil plug is replaced below the guy on top has a
machine programmed to put the right amount of the right oil in. The result is
they can do your oil change in 10 minutes with 2 low skill employees and they
make less mistakes since the machines are programmed to prevent them.

Compare to your mechanic: he needs to jack your car up (he has a power lift
not a pit), then move the drain pan into place. Then one the lower end is done
jack it down, call the warehouse to deliver the right filter for your car,
then look up how much oil to put in and open the cans and count. In the end
your mechanic ends up spending more man hours than the oil change place and is
more likely to make a mistake because less is automated. Your mechanic is also
more expensive because he knows how to do other work and has tools for that,
you pay for all those tools and knowledge even if you don't use it.

That pit in the oil change place is very dangerous (exhaust buildup, people
falling in), engineers have spent significant effort figuring out how to make
then safe. That pit is also expensive, if use it for 30 oil changes a day, 6
days a week, for 10 years the cost is pretty cheap per use. If you are a
mechanic working on general repair not only is a lift cheaper and safer, the
ability to position the car at any height make it more useful: if you have a
both you will often choose the lift making the cost of the pit something that
is amortized over less uses.

Similar applies to tire changes: they need some expensive specialized
equipment that your mechanic isn't using but still needs to pay for. The tire
change place has more tire customers to amortize this with.

Note that the above specialization works because oil changes are tire changes
are common enough that it is worth the effort to make it work. Your town
doesn't need to be very big for there to be enough cars to support many
specialized oil change and tire shops. This quantity of shops means that
engineers who design specialized tools have a large number of potential
customers to split the R&D cost between making the costs lower. Tires and oil
are all similar enough between cars that one machine can handle most.

As we get out of the common repairs we get to one off: most engines don't need
a head gasket change anymore, for 200 million dollars I can design a special
tool to do the job much faster: labor might only be $20, but your share of the
tool R&D is $1 million dollars since only 100 people will replace the head
gasket for that type of engine. Or you can pay a mechanic to do it without the
tool, your labor is $800 but not special machine to pay for. Of course if your
engine turns out to have a common problem things will change: mechanics will
develop tricks to do the job faster, maybe some tools will be made, but it
will probably never get as cheap as the machine I envisioned.

~~~
chrisseaton
But why spend the time driving to so many different places? That can't be more
efficient, can it?

All those things need doing once a year at most. Drive to one place, have it
all done at once.

~~~
indentit
As someone that commutes 80 km to work every weekday (i.e. one way) in a
country where its the law to change tyres twice a year and the usual
recommendation for oil changes are after every 10 or 15 thousand kilometers, I
think its safe to say that your statement can't be applied generally even if
its true for you...

------
shusson
It's really nice to see someone actually re-invent the wheel.

------
hprotagonist
[https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_aa-l.html](https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_aa-l.html)

 _Airless tires have been obsolete for over a century, but crackpot
"inventors" keep trying to bring them back. They are heavy and slow. They give
a harsh ride and poor high-speed cornering on rough surfaces. They are also
likely to cause wheel damage, due to their poor cushioning ability. A
pneumatic tire uses all of the air in the whole tube as a shock absorber,
while foam-type "airless" tires/tubes only use the air in the immediate area
of impact..._

~~~
leereeves
The article acknowledges that:

> Unlike past attempts at airless tires, Uptis functions the way other modern
> tires do and, Michelin claims, will provide a similar driving experience.

And I doubt Michelin is leaving this up to "crackpot inventors".

~~~
gameswithgo
As someone with a degree of practical expertise in Tires both automotive and
cycling, who has seen this idea come and go a lot of times, I too remain
fairly confident this tire will be fairly terrible compared to pneumatic
tires, and useful only in fringe use cases where getting flats is a serious
problem.

I will of course be happy to be wrong!

------
elliekelly
> "If you have a load on the tire and you cut all the spokes at the bottom,
> you will see that nothing will change, demonstrating that the load is
> carried by the top of it, not by the under parts." Other airless tires, he
> said, often carry the load at the bottom of the tire, which is very
> inefficient and causes extra heating due to compression.

I’m a bit confused by this. Is the resin-embedded fiberglass that Uptis uses
to make this possible in the _tire_ or is this a new _hub_ that makes the
airless tire possible?

~~~
elliekelly
Too late for me to edit my comment but for anyone curious, I asked Michelin
for clarification and it turns out the tire "spokes" are made from a
_composite_ rubber and resin embedded fiberglass. So it has the
flexibility/movement of rubber but is high strength from the resin embedded
fiberglass. It's on an aluminum hub just like any other tire.

------
eganist
Can anyone hypothesize why there's no sidewall on these? Anything I come up
with in my own mind I end up defeating.

Unrelated:

> max load of 1102 pounds.

I have to assume this is _per tire_ considering the Chevy Bolt weighs 3,600lbs
but it's not clear from the article.

~~~
elliekelly
I’m guessing because a sidewall on the tire wouldn’t be “airless”? And they’d
have to check/monitor the air pressure of each of the “pockets” of air as
temperature changes?

Full disclosure: I say this as someone who knows next to nothing about
tires/tire pressure/cars in general. My tire pressure light has been on for at
least three months now.

~~~
jfk13
> My tire pressure light has been on for at least three months now.

Maybe worth getting that checked?

~~~
elliekelly
Indeed, I'm told it's a sensor malfunction not the tire pressure. Apparently
it's a known issue with Toyotas. The mechanic is nice enough to check the
pressure for me when he sees me getting gas since the "new" sensor (sensors?)
didn't keep the light off very long.

------
amriksohata
They could have made this a long time ago but the industry backed by giants
like Goodyear, Dunlop, pirelli etc would lose out on their business model of
replacement tyres so wouldn't push it. Similar thing happened to the electric
car in the 90s California had quite a few, but the oil industry killed them
off, watch the programme "who killed the electric car"

------
mensetmanusman
This is awesome.

Our van had a tire slashed at a church parking lot that was renting space to
the high school under construction. It didn’t collapse until after a 5 minute
drive was completed when it was (thankfully) at rest. Exploding tires on the
highway at 70 MPH aren’t fun to think about.

------
kazinator
> _Michelin 's new Unique Puncture-Proof Tire System (Uptis) does away with
> one of the defining aspects of tires as we've known them for more than 100
> years: the air inside._

Absolute nonsense. Airless tires have been around for about that long also.
I've seen airless motorcycle tires from circa 1920 in a museum: they looked a
lot like that picture of the new one: basic hub shapes with lateral voids in
them.

They are in use currently; I've seen them from time to time over the years on
various earth-moving equipment around town.

The idea of airless tires for general motorist use gets periodically trotted
out by snake oil salesmen as some new revolutionary thing that will take over
the industry.

Pneumatic tires have superior performance because the entire volume of air
around the wheel provides the suspension and shock absorption, rather than
just the compression of a small amount of material around the contact patch.

------
josefresco
I had "run flats" on a Honda minivan years ago. When it came time to replace
them, I was presented with the option of new run flats for $800+, or
traditional tires for less than half that. If the replacement cost of these
tires is exorbitant, they will fail in the marketplace.

~~~
chrismeller
That’s hardly the only factor, though. How long do they last? Is getting a
flat something that happens to you on a regular basis? What about savings from
canceling your AAA membership and the loss of work time waiting on them? Are
they as uncomfortable as they used to be?

In 20 years of driving I can count on one hand how many times I’ve gotten a
flat of any kind and none of them were bad enough that I had to immediately
pull over. It’s also not like I only drive 5 miles a day, I easily beat the
national average in regular usage and have taken multiple 2+ month long road
trips covering 10k miles at a time.

For me the value just isn’t there, but I suppose there are people who have had
dozens of flats? I mean they have to exist for a reason, right?

------
lqet
Something like that already exists for bikes (English link in the comment
below):

[https://www.schwalbe.com/de/pressereader/weltneuheit-
schwalb...](https://www.schwalbe.com/de/pressereader/weltneuheit-schwalbe-
airless-system.html)

However, if I recall some reviews correctly, it is quite complicated to
install.

~~~
jfengel
I had foam-based bike tires 20 years ago, and they were quite awful. They
cushion by flattening out on the bottom, creating an enormous rolling
resistance. It was like pushing uphill everywhere.

This isn't quite the same, but in calling it the "first airless system" it
sounds like they had done zero research on previous systems and have no idea
what the potential problems are.

The new Michelin system is a rather different concept. I dunno if it will
adapt to bike tires or not, but it would be great if it can.

------
jstapels
How would these be serviced? I would be surprised if conventional tire
machines could mount/unmount these from wheels.

~~~
maxerickson
It's both parts, there's no separate wheel.

------
martyvis
Why would it take 5 years before they are production ready? It would seem if
you are showing a product ready to test on real roads, you'd have to be much
closer to shipping than that would indicate.

~~~
S_A_P
Having a working prototype is not the same as having the infrastructure and
supply chain in place to mass produce.

~~~
badfrog
And there are probably (hopefully) a lot of safety certifications to go
through after you start testing.

------
pi-rat
The main structure of the tire looks almost like voronoi 3d mesh. Do you think
it's voronoi, or just looks similar?

I'm kinda surprised they didn't go for something like a gyroid mesh.

------
lm28469
If you want to see something similar in action:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wAvxQfusWU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wAvxQfusWU)

------
masonic
The French card game _Mille Bornes_ used the name "Puncture-Proof" (English
version) for its safety card to make one invulnerable to flat tires.

------
growlist
Wow. That's probably millions more jobs gone then for tyre shops, though
obviously there will be a slow switchover.

------
exabrial
Curious if this adds to the unsprung weight of the suspension component or not

------
magwa101
Drive with a screwdriver and pliers so you can pluck out all the rocks you
pick up.

------
chungleong
Should such tires be available to the general public? Many locations rely on
tire shredders for perimeter security. These measure will become useless. As
will spike strips used by law enforcement. How will police be able to stop
fugitive vehicles equipped with puncture-proof tires? Some sort of remotely
activated kill-switch will have to be mandated.

~~~
michaelmrose
Neither consumers nor Consumer products should be primarily concerned with law
enforcement convenience.

Car makers expertise at making cars is often pretty bad their expertise with
electronics and software security is hilariously bad.

A universal remote kill switch is a very bad idea especially in response to a
tire that might be in production for a tiny fraction of cars 5 years from now
and with a wildly successful and unlikely uptake could be pervasive in merely
decades.

Given motivation I'm sure people can probably figure out a low tech solution
that does not involve figuring out how to fit all cars going forward with a
backdoor that will almost certainly be exploited.

For example perhaps something could damage or foul the wheel or clamp onto it.

