Future Tire is a Tweel

Michelin has also found that it can tune Tweels so vertical stiffness (which primarily affects ride comfort) and lateral stiffness (which affects handling and cornering) can both be optimized, and enable performance not possible for current inflated tires. The Tweel prototype, demonstrated on the Audi A4, is within one percent of the fuel economy of current tires. Michelin has also increased the lateral stiffness by a factor of five, making the prototype unusually responsive.

Testing
Michelin estimates that even with the reliability of today's radials, motorists get a flat every 80,000 miles driven, which can be a nuisance if not a dangerous situation. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that three out of four vehicles have at least one under-inflated tire, which can lead to blowouts, affect the load-carrying capacity of the vehicle, accelerate wear, and reduce performance of the tires. A Tweel, with the same tread depth as a conventional tire, under research conditions, seems to last twice as long. And the Tweel can be re-treaded thereby lengthening its useful life.


Michelin says that radial tire technology will continue as the standard for the foreseeable future, but lessons learned from Tweel research are being applied to improve conventional tires. The first real-world application of Michelin's Tweel is available on a wheel chair—iBOT—invented by Dean Kamen. The iBOT can climb stairs and navigate uneven terrain, offering mobility freedom impossible with traditional wheelchairs. The Segway LLC's Concept Centaur, a prototype that applies self-balancing technology to a four-wheel device, has also been equipped with Tweels to increase its performance potential.


The Tweel probably won't be in the showroom for a least a decade. If all goes well in the lab, Tweels could replace radials, but that is a long-term prediction. It took radials 30 years to replace bias tires and become the universal tire standard.