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> 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 an

> 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.

snazz 7y ago
Sounds like a wonderful market opportunity for a “disruptive” startup. As much as I dislike Tesla for other reasons, building tires that last for the life of the car would probably be good for their bottom line.
- mc32 7y ago
  Yep, that would be the digital sensor vs analog film scenario all over again. Kodak lost out (even though they were one of the first with quality high resolution sensors) because they didn’t want to cannibalizes and threaten their cash cow (and legacy or patrimony).
sschueller 7y ago
I don't think it would have such a large impact since many tires get destroyed before their tread is up. Punktures and curbing hapens a lot especially in cities with poorly maintained pavements which is saddly quite common. Then you have that many cars now want you to replace at minimum 2 tires and not just the one that has been punctured.
- mc32 7y ago
  Whatever happened to re-vulcanizing tires? Trucks and tractors still have their worn treads re-vulcanized. Why not private autos? Seems it would be friendlier to the pocket (not having to buy a whole new set) and friendlier to the environment...
  - brianwawok 7y ago
    They tend to fail at high speed in dramatic ways. On a truck with 18 wheels it’s ok. If it’s your front tire on a SUV going 80 Down the highway? Someone is dead.
    - mc32 7y ago
      That’s a good reason. Is the failure rate higher than say blowouts by ordinary under inflation? Never the less, it was my impression that re-vulcanizing tread doesn’t affect the integrity of the tire structure (wall, casing, belts) Maybe they would be okay on things like kei-cars?
      - bluGill 7y ago
        Yes, but that isn't fair. From what I can tell a well done replacement should be slightly more reliable. However the real world is not kind. In the real world retreads are more likely to be under inflated because they are likely to be used on a trailer not the truck, which is in general not inspected as often as a truck. Truckers use the same truck for the most part so they take care of it, while they hook up to different trailers all the time. Retreads are also older tires. Retread doesn't affect the integrity of the tire structure, but sunlight, air and water does. (water only once there is a small track to the steel belts). These are all a function of time, and retreads are always older. The above is what I can gather from a search, but it does seem like most of the information is written by retread marketing so take it with a little salt.
        mc32 7y ago
        I looked further into this following bluedino's mention of TreadWright. Doing a bead to bead retreading will eliminate the issue of rubber rot due to sunlight or wear and tear.[1] "... when we make the remolded tire we remove the existing rubber down to about 3-6mm remaining on the recycled casing. The rubber is removed from the inside bead, across the sidewall of the tire, across the tread of the tire, all the way to the outer bead. We then replace the rubber from "Bead-to-Bead" applying 6mil rubber on the sidewalls and multiple plys of rubber on the tread." They probably do some kind of scan to determine the structural integrity of the tire structure, I imagine. [1]https://www.treadwright.com/pages/faq https://www.treadwright.com/pages/faq
foepys 7y ago
It would also be environmentally smart to have such a tire. The abrasion of current tires is creating very, very small rubber particles that are just flying around with the wind. Creating waste in every corner of the world.
agumonkey 7y ago
A year ago or so I read a webpage about car tires. The guy claimed that some high ranked Michelin guy said in the 80s "we can make infinite tires right now, why would we do that ?". :)
- saalweachter 7y ago
  This is like, the perfect internet version of "my girlfriend's cousin's friend's aunt said" stories. If intentional, bravo.
  - volume-scale 7y ago
    Still, I believe it. A ten year, 200,000 mile tire sounds like a pretty reachable goal if you don't use rubber. Mass produced, and economies of scale take over, and a resin with carbon fiber, or some other high performance composite gets cheaper, and ultra durable donuts get popped onto car rims around the world.
    - EADGBE 7y ago
      If you use anything harder than rubber then you're only damaging the road more.
0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
It doesn't seem too difficult to go from tire shop to regular car maintenance shop. Michelin would care less about manufacturing tires and more about R&D, e.g. Can you scale the Uptis design up to tractors and larger sized wheels? The incentive here for Michelin is also being an initial leader in the new market if an airless tire fad catches on and the product is good.
- matwood 7y ago
  > It doesn't seem too difficult to go from tire shop to regular car maintenance shop. At least locally this has already happened. I just got new tires for my truck at a place named Tire something or other. Since I was there I got an oil change. I also have a leaky head gasket (110k miles on the truck) they said they could fix it then or I could just do it at my next oil change.
chrisseaton 7y ago
> 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.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  It depends on the shop. A tire shop will have more versaility, availability, and product to browse. There's places that only do inspections/minor stuff like oil changes, wiper replacements, meter checking, etc. There's other places that only do collision damage. And others that specialize in paints and designs. There are definitely do-it-all places, but they will take a wait as they have specialty equipment delivered to them/shipped to them as needed. For example, a tire replacement at a do-it-all shop took well over an hour for them just to get the tires in the shop to replace on my car.
- bluGill 7y ago
  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.
gitgud 7y ago
I don't understand this argument. It's a conspiracy similar to the suppressed cancer cure. It sounds reasonable at first glance but when you break it down it doesn't make sense. Any company, including the market leaders would instantly make billions with a cheap long lasting tire and would render all competitors as obsolete. All other tires would become buggy whips in comparison... So, why would they suppress that?
- hirundo 7y ago
  If Michelin could produce a tire that lasted 10x as long, they probably could not sell it for 10x the price. They probably can't increase their market share by 10x either to make up for it. So while making such a tire might still be a winner for them, it isn't crystal clear. It would be a more obvious good deal for a smaller tire maker who has more market share to gain. But they're less capable of sustaining a huge R&D budget. I just hope the solution isn't that expensive.
  - gitgud 7y ago
    Yes, it depends on how much better the tire is (2x, 10x), but I still think this argument doesn't make sense. If Michelin don't use the technology, then another company might discover the secret tire and produce it and wipe out the competition in the industry. From Michelin's perspective they would have a golden goose of a product and would want to exploit that for as much profit as possible... Also, they're not just going to gain market share they would literally be the market-leaders in a new industry of long-lasting tires...
    - bluedino 7y ago
      Michelin is a premium tire brand, and their prices are on the high end. I just priced out a set of Michelin LTX tires for our SUV and they were $190 each, 70,000 mile warranty.
  - Rexxar 7y ago
    They have already done something similar in 1950 with radial tires and I think they will do it again if they can (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_tire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_tire). Additionally you don't need 10x market share, you just need to go from 3% margin to 30% margin for example with your 10 times better product to make it even.
SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
Tire shops will still charge for the winter changeout and whatever maintenance people have been delaying with it. I'm honestly happy if they last the same length, as long as I never need to worry about running on a flat - even just getting the damned tired pressure sensors calibrated correctly turns into a day or two of effort.
- bluedino 7y ago
  Discount tire does it for free and will even store your winter tires.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    For free as well? I usually go to one of the major tire shops here in Canada and they recently phased out free tire changes.
sokoloff 7y ago
There is a tradeoff between traction and (to a lesser extent) ride quality versus treadwear. Long treadwear tires tend to have terrible traction qualities as compared to softer tires. This is obviously true in motorsports (and is a major strategy component in Formula One), but is also noticeable on road cars. It's not just sports cars and "racer wannabees", but handling traction is a safety issue at the limit. For winter tires, you typically need a softer and more compliant compound as well. You could make tires out of something closer to cast iron that would wear incredibly long but have terrible traction and ride.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >There is a tradeoff between traction and (to a lesser extent) ride quality versus treadwear. Exactly. If you throw load range E truck tires on your compact SUV they will last until they dry rot, so a decade or so. People buy milsurp Goodyear MTRs and run them on pickups/SUVs and they last practically forever on lighter vehicles. Neither of these will do good things for handling though. The tire OEMs could make a tire that lasted 100k and provide "tolerable" handling in normal conditions if they wanted. They don't want to because in this day and age anything that obviously trades safety for reduced cost is basically a non-starter and they don't want to get sued into oblivion. >You could make tires out of something closer to cast iron that would wear incredibly long but have terrible traction and ride. "sheepsfoot wheels" is the term you're looking for.
dougmwne 7y ago
I apologize in advance for the armchair engineering, but from a basic knowledge of material science, everlasting tires probably aren't practical. The tire needs to be soft and grippy in order to be safe on the road. Soft things will be worn down by harder things. So to keep the tire soft enough to be safe, you would need to add more material. But lots of mass on the outer circumference of a wheel would have negative implications for performance and fuel efficiency. And besides, modern tires last 50k miles. That's twice around the planet by friction force. That's not enough of an engineering marvel for you folks?
Shivetya 7y ago
EVs will be a seismic disruption of the industry to the point that worrying about tire life will be the least of the concerns. With regards to these tire replacements, the questions that occurred with previous look a likes are still on my mind. How do they keep the open and compressible areas free of debris, if not snow during those months, and what effect does the debris that are not dislodged have longevity and safety? Since sidewalls impart a lot of strength how do these tires perform during harsh maneuvers. Are they strong enough side wall wise for racing? Some tread compounds are sticky enough on production tires to allow cars to pull more than 1g forces laterally. Even if they reduce the need to replace them as often, there are already tires that pull in excess of fifty thousand miles, I doubt they will be that radical. The softer summer compounds are not being discussed here and those are popular on many sports cars and non traditional sport vehicles
NikolaNovak 7y ago
Today, you can buy tires in varies tread wear rating. You CAN buy tires which will last you a really long time; their traction though will be correspondingly lower. Tire design (and purchase, for an informed consumer) is a compromise between price, grip, wear, and conditions (temperature, rain/snow/mud/etc). My friend buys tires that last him ~7+ years, which for him is a lifetime of the vehicle. But if a kid ever jumps in front us on the street, I'll rather be in my summer performance tires that last me ~3 years (or less if I have fun:).
toss1 7y ago
Very extended treadlife is definitely possible. The problem is that you will not like the tradeoffs. This is vastly oversimplifying, but the overall tradeoff is grip vs durability. You get a very grippy tire made for racing in series that mandate street tires, and these will typically have both a very sticky compound and low tread depth. They perform great, but may last less than 15K miles of street use (or less than 20 miles on the racetrack). On the other end, you can get what are essentially hockey pucks that'll last a very long time in normal highway use. Depending on what you want to optimize for, you can start with several ratings on the tires themselves. Tire Rack has a great guide here [1] on treadwear and traction grades. It is a good place to start, and then you should always seek more detailed knowledge from people with direct field experience, as the ratings can be a bit games (e.g., you'd want to get some kind of AAA-traction rated tire for an autocross or track day, but getting the best one for your car, driving style and that event it'd be best to also talk to/read articles by people who've been there & done that) [1]https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=48& https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=...

snazz 7y ago

Sounds like a wonderful market opportunity for a “disruptive” startup. As much as I dislike Tesla for other reasons, building tires that last for the life of the car would probably be good for their bottom line.

mc32 7y ago
Yep, that would be the digital sensor vs analog film scenario all over again. Kodak lost out (even though they were one of the first with quality high resolution sensors) because they didn’t want to cannibalizes and threaten their cash cow (and legacy or patrimony).

sschueller 7y ago

I don't think it would have such a large impact since many tires get destroyed before their tread is up. Punktures and curbing hapens a lot especially in cities with poorly maintained pavements which is saddly quite common. Then you have that many cars now want you to replace at minimum 2 tires and not just the one that has been punctured.

mc32 7y ago
Whatever happened to re-vulcanizing tires? Trucks and tractors still have their worn treads re-vulcanized. Why not private autos? Seems it would be friendlier to the pocket (not having to buy a whole new set) and friendlier to the environment...
- brianwawok 7y ago
  They tend to fail at high speed in dramatic ways. On a truck with 18 wheels it’s ok. If it’s your front tire on a SUV going 80 Down the highway? Someone is dead.
  - mc32 7y ago
    That’s a good reason. Is the failure rate higher than say blowouts by ordinary under inflation? Never the less, it was my impression that re-vulcanizing tread doesn’t affect the integrity of the tire structure (wall, casing, belts) Maybe they would be okay on things like kei-cars?
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Yes, but that isn't fair. From what I can tell a well done replacement should be slightly more reliable. However the real world is not kind. In the real world retreads are more likely to be under inflated because they are likely to be used on a trailer not the truck, which is in general not inspected as often as a truck. Truckers use the same truck for the most part so they take care of it, while they hook up to different trailers all the time. Retreads are also older tires. Retread doesn't affect the integrity of the tire structure, but sunlight, air and water does. (water only once there is a small track to the steel belts). These are all a function of time, and retreads are always older. The above is what I can gather from a search, but it does seem like most of the information is written by retread marketing so take it with a little salt.
      - mc32 7y ago
        I looked further into this following bluedino's mention of TreadWright. Doing a bead to bead retreading will eliminate the issue of rubber rot due to sunlight or wear and tear.[1] "... when we make the remolded tire we remove the existing rubber down to about 3-6mm remaining on the recycled casing. The rubber is removed from the inside bead, across the sidewall of the tire, across the tread of the tire, all the way to the outer bead. We then replace the rubber from "Bead-to-Bead" applying 6mil rubber on the sidewalls and multiple plys of rubber on the tread." They probably do some kind of scan to determine the structural integrity of the tire structure, I imagine. [1]https://www.treadwright.com/pages/faq https://www.treadwright.com/pages/faq

foepys 7y ago

It would also be environmentally smart to have such a tire. The abrasion of current tires is creating very, very small rubber particles that are just flying around with the wind. Creating waste in every corner of the world.

agumonkey 7y ago

A year ago or so I read a webpage about car tires. The guy claimed that some high ranked Michelin guy said in the 80s "we can make infinite tires right now, why would we do that ?". :)

saalweachter 7y ago
This is like, the perfect internet version of "my girlfriend's cousin's friend's aunt said" stories. If intentional, bravo.
- volume-scale 7y ago
  Still, I believe it. A ten year, 200,000 mile tire sounds like a pretty reachable goal if you don't use rubber. Mass produced, and economies of scale take over, and a resin with carbon fiber, or some other high performance composite gets cheaper, and ultra durable donuts get popped onto car rims around the world.
  - EADGBE 7y ago
    If you use anything harder than rubber then you're only damaging the road more.

0xDEFC0DE 7y ago

It doesn't seem too difficult to go from tire shop to regular car maintenance shop. Michelin would care less about manufacturing tires and more about R&D, e.g. Can you scale the Uptis design up to tractors and larger sized wheels? The incentive here for Michelin is also being an initial leader in the new market if an airless tire fad catches on and the product is good.

matwood 7y ago
> It doesn't seem too difficult to go from tire shop to regular car maintenance shop. At least locally this has already happened. I just got new tires for my truck at a place named Tire something or other. Since I was there I got an oil change. I also have a leaky head gasket (110k miles on the truck) they said they could fix it then or I could just do it at my next oil change.

chrisseaton 7y ago

> 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.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
It depends on the shop. A tire shop will have more versaility, availability, and product to browse. There's places that only do inspections/minor stuff like oil changes, wiper replacements, meter checking, etc. There's other places that only do collision damage. And others that specialize in paints and designs. There are definitely do-it-all places, but they will take a wait as they have specialty equipment delivered to them/shipped to them as needed. For example, a tire replacement at a do-it-all shop took well over an hour for them just to get the tires in the shop to replace on my car.
bluGill 7y ago
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.

gitgud 7y ago

I don't understand this argument. It's a conspiracy similar to the suppressed cancer cure. It sounds reasonable at first glance but when you break it down it doesn't make sense. Any company, including the market leaders would instantly make billions with a cheap long lasting tire and would render all competitors as obsolete. All other tires would become buggy whips in comparison... So, why would they suppress that?

hirundo 7y ago
If Michelin could produce a tire that lasted 10x as long, they probably could not sell it for 10x the price. They probably can't increase their market share by 10x either to make up for it. So while making such a tire might still be a winner for them, it isn't crystal clear. It would be a more obvious good deal for a smaller tire maker who has more market share to gain. But they're less capable of sustaining a huge R&D budget. I just hope the solution isn't that expensive.
- gitgud 7y ago
  Yes, it depends on how much better the tire is (2x, 10x), but I still think this argument doesn't make sense. If Michelin don't use the technology, then another company might discover the secret tire and produce it and wipe out the competition in the industry. From Michelin's perspective they would have a golden goose of a product and would want to exploit that for as much profit as possible... Also, they're not just going to gain market share they would literally be the market-leaders in a new industry of long-lasting tires...
  - bluedino 7y ago
    Michelin is a premium tire brand, and their prices are on the high end. I just priced out a set of Michelin LTX tires for our SUV and they were $190 each, 70,000 mile warranty.
- Rexxar 7y ago
  They have already done something similar in 1950 with radial tires and I think they will do it again if they can (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_tire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_tire). Additionally you don't need 10x market share, you just need to go from 3% margin to 30% margin for example with your 10 times better product to make it even.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago

Tire shops will still charge for the winter changeout and whatever maintenance people have been delaying with it. I'm honestly happy if they last the same length, as long as I never need to worry about running on a flat - even just getting the damned tired pressure sensors calibrated correctly turns into a day or two of effort.

bluedino 7y ago
Discount tire does it for free and will even store your winter tires.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  For free as well? I usually go to one of the major tire shops here in Canada and they recently phased out free tire changes.

sokoloff 7y ago

There is a tradeoff between traction and (to a lesser extent) ride quality versus treadwear. Long treadwear tires tend to have terrible traction qualities as compared to softer tires. This is obviously true in motorsports (and is a major strategy component in Formula One), but is also noticeable on road cars. It's not just sports cars and "racer wannabees", but handling traction is a safety issue at the limit. For winter tires, you typically need a softer and more compliant compound as well. You could make tires out of something closer to cast iron that would wear incredibly long but have terrible traction and ride.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>There is a tradeoff between traction and (to a lesser extent) ride quality versus treadwear. Exactly. If you throw load range E truck tires on your compact SUV they will last until they dry rot, so a decade or so. People buy milsurp Goodyear MTRs and run them on pickups/SUVs and they last practically forever on lighter vehicles. Neither of these will do good things for handling though. The tire OEMs could make a tire that lasted 100k and provide "tolerable" handling in normal conditions if they wanted. They don't want to because in this day and age anything that obviously trades safety for reduced cost is basically a non-starter and they don't want to get sued into oblivion. >You could make tires out of something closer to cast iron that would wear incredibly long but have terrible traction and ride. "sheepsfoot wheels" is the term you're looking for.

dougmwne 7y ago

I apologize in advance for the armchair engineering, but from a basic knowledge of material science, everlasting tires probably aren't practical. The tire needs to be soft and grippy in order to be safe on the road. Soft things will be worn down by harder things. So to keep the tire soft enough to be safe, you would need to add more material. But lots of mass on the outer circumference of a wheel would have negative implications for performance and fuel efficiency. And besides, modern tires last 50k miles. That's twice around the planet by friction force. That's not enough of an engineering marvel for you folks?

Shivetya 7y ago

EVs will be a seismic disruption of the industry to the point that worrying about tire life will be the least of the concerns. With regards to these tire replacements, the questions that occurred with previous look a likes are still on my mind. How do they keep the open and compressible areas free of debris, if not snow during those months, and what effect does the debris that are not dislodged have longevity and safety? Since sidewalls impart a lot of strength how do these tires perform during harsh maneuvers. Are they strong enough side wall wise for racing? Some tread compounds are sticky enough on production tires to allow cars to pull more than 1g forces laterally. Even if they reduce the need to replace them as often, there are already tires that pull in excess of fifty thousand miles, I doubt they will be that radical. The softer summer compounds are not being discussed here and those are popular on many sports cars and non traditional sport vehicles

NikolaNovak 7y ago

Today, you can buy tires in varies tread wear rating. You CAN buy tires which will last you a really long time; their traction though will be correspondingly lower. Tire design (and purchase, for an informed consumer) is a compromise between price, grip, wear, and conditions (temperature, rain/snow/mud/etc). My friend buys tires that last him ~7+ years, which for him is a lifetime of the vehicle. But if a kid ever jumps in front us on the street, I'll rather be in my summer performance tires that last me ~3 years (or less if I have fun:).

toss1 7y ago

Very extended treadlife is definitely possible. The problem is that you will not like the tradeoffs. This is vastly oversimplifying, but the overall tradeoff is grip vs durability. You get a very grippy tire made for racing in series that mandate street tires, and these will typically have both a very sticky compound and low tread depth. They perform great, but may last less than 15K miles of street use (or less than 20 miles on the racetrack). On the other end, you can get what are essentially hockey pucks that'll last a very long time in normal highway use. Depending on what you want to optimize for, you can start with several ratings on the tires themselves. Tire Rack has a great guide here [1] on treadwear and traction grades. It is a good place to start, and then you should always seek more detailed knowledge from people with direct field experience, as the ratings can be a bit games (e.g., you'd want to get some kind of AAA-traction rated tire for an autocross or track day, but getting the best one for your car, driving style and that event it'd be best to also talk to/read articles by people who've been there & done that) [1]https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=48& https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=...