cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/15030023
This story has been floating around for a couple years. Maybe there’s some truth in it?
On all pictures that I find, these airless tires have open sides. Wouldn’t that accumulate huge amounts of snow, dirt etc. over time? And if a small rock gets trapped between the rubber, that’s probably also not ideal for the longevity of the tire?
My guess is that when they go into production, they’ll probably have sidewalls. I think the pre-prod ones are too show the technology inside.
Did they get the road noise issue sorted?
These tires have been around for 20 years and still haven’t been widely adopted.
I wonder why car tires don’t have sealant in them like tubeless bike tires. You can drive over nails and they seal themselves.
As someone who has to deal with rims and tires all day, I freaking hope this never happens. I would rather be stabbed in the leg with a rusty knife than deal with tires packed with sealant.
I cannot even begin to count the number of times I’ve needed to used the emergency eyewash station because of tire sealant, even with eye protection, the stuff gets everywhere, and customers always seem to “forget” that they used an entire can of sealant to fix their tire leak so we get to be covered in the stuff for hours and scrub the machines down, the walls, the floors everything. Ask any Tire tech what they think of fix-a-flat or tire sealant and you’ll likely get a similar response.
