We love a good concept tire here at New Atlas. Incremental improvements aside, the wheel-to-road interface has been more or less stagnant since Goodyear rolled out the first commercial tubeless tire some 66 years ago. Now, the same company has proposed a radically different design with the new age of electric mobility in mind.
Electric cars, of course, will theoretically need very little in the way of maintenance. There’s no oil changes or belts or timing chains to do, and regenerative braking does the lion’s share of the stopping work, so even your brake pads will rarely need changing. Tires, on the other hand, will still require you to take your car to a workshop and wait around as they’re being changed. In the age of instant gratification, this might start feeling like an anachronism.
Dispatches From The Front 