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These tires do have sidewalls. The sidewalls are removed for marketing and demonstration purposes only.
by bkanber 5y ago
These tires do have sidewalls. The sidewalls are removed for marketing and demonstration purposes only.
- marcellus23 5y agoI'm sure everyone in the tire industry (?) knows that, but it would be nice if Michelin had something to suggest that on their page.
- bkanber 5y agoThe only little clue is that one photo of the EV where the sidewalls are visible on the tires. You have to squint to see it :)
- marcellus23 5y agogood catch!
- jacquesm 5y agoTotally missed that on first reading, thank you for pointing it out.
- cjrp 5y agoI guess the point is if they can be removed for demonstrations, then they're not critical to the structure.
- sfe22 5y agoThey may be for real world usage, you dont want rocks or sticks getting inside
- cjrp 5y agoAbsolutely, my point was that if you can remove them for this sort of demo, then if they get damaged by a pothole then it's probably easy to replace them.
- kube-system 5y agoThe demo tires shown here don't have "removable" sidewalls. They were manufactured without them. The production tires will be one piece, like normal tires.
- bkanber 5y agoSidewalls are critical for NVH at higher speeds, as well as fuel economy. But a demo of a tire on a car going 55 mph doesn't make sense, so they are able to remove the sidewalls for these stationary photoshoots and low speed rolling tests.
- sparrish 5y agoI imagine they're critical for noise reduction.