LE blog, the BOLO Report published an interesting article yesterday on the Tweel, a new tire concept. An integrated Tire and Wheel concept (hence the portmanteau name), lacks an air valve, or air, for that matter.
Check out the full details at boloreport.wordpress.com.
Tags: BOLO Report, Tweel
LOL!!
Should work well with that 1995 Hyundai if you extend the wheels past the body….
saw this years ago, are they close to a real world commercial variant?
Ive seen these exact photographs appearing on the internet for at LEAST 5 years. Hardly a new concept.
5 years? This goes all the way back to the Lunar Rover, BEFORE we landed there.
Why it’s a great idea: you never have a flat, and it only needs a tread replacement. Lighter weight jounces the vehicle less.
Why it still doesn’t work: the cushion of captured air does the majority of the cushioning with obstacles under 2″, and suspension tuning alone is exponentially more difficult handling the much higher amount of road irregularity in that spectrum. The lack of mass in the tire also cycles the suspension more, adding to the challenge of dampening oscillations.
Note this still hasn’t replaced the pneumatic bicycle tire yet – the one application that every father of young children would pay good money to get. Whiny six year olds and teens mangling tubes and screwdrivers would all go away if it could be done – hasn’t happened yet even with that incentive.
Yeah, right, we CAN put a man on the moon, useful semi pnuematics on bikes, not. Take a good look at the “profile” of that spring tread, it’s not a 40, more like a 95 aspect ratio.
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