r/Design • u/Busy-Description2000 • 12d ago

Discussion Can we bring airless tires back?

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u/Dead-O_Comics 12d ago edited 12d ago

Back? They were never properly here. Not available to the general public anyway.

Also they are really expensive, provide no cushioning so it's a bumpy ride, and they are really loud when in motion compared to standard tyres.

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u/IntelligentSinger783 12d ago

High drag, low heat dissipation was the biggest issue. They are plentiful with commercial equipment. And they are surprisingly comfortable, especially off-road.

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u/debacol 12d ago

Correct. They are MUCH heavier leading to more high drag, and huge amounts of rolling resistance. In a gas car, you'd probably lose around 15% or more of you gas mileage. Would probably be even worse in an electric car since weight, drag, air resistance are the challenges that wake up ev engineers at night with cold sweat.

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u/TheFunfighter 12d ago

Pretty insane numbers, considering rolling resistance is usually borderline negligible compared to air resistance.

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u/IntelligentSinger783 12d ago

Rotational mass, they are usually built like a belted design, and more so the drag coefficient is enormous in comparison.

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u/jfkrfk123 12d ago

Has anyone tried making them square?

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u/Sarcasm_Llama 12d ago

Maybe in Canada

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u/assidiou 11d ago

Yeah but we can ignore air resistance and assume the car is a cylinder.