Consumer airless tires might actually get green lighted for passenger vehicles

07/30/2015 - 07:02

Evan Ackerman

Air-filled (pneumatic) tires give our vehicles comfortable, cushiony rides (Thanks tires, we appreciate that.) Looking at it from another perspective, pneumatic tires are containers of pressurized gas that are being subjected to constant abuse, and when something happens to them, it can result in a situation that falls somewhere between a minor annoyance and a deadly catastrophe. We’ve ridden on these things for about 130 years now, and while they’ve improved substantially since John Dunlop invented them to keep his kid from getting headaches while riding his bike, it seems that we can still do better.

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