- General
- June 5, 2019
- 5 minutes read
GM And Michelin Debuts Tires Without Air
A Chevrolet Bolt EV equipped with a prototype airless tire image: General Motors General Motors and Michelin — the world’s…
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| A Chevrolet Bolt EV equipped with a prototype airless tire
image: General Motors
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General Motors and Michelin — the world’s second largest tire manufacturer — have unveiled automobile tires that follow an unconventional path, in this case without the use of air as tires normally do. GM and Michelin presented a prototype today at the Movin’On Summit in Montreal, Canada. GM is aiming to introduce the airless tires on its vehicles by 2024 and says it’ll begin testing them this year on a fleet of Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles.
The airless tire prototype, named Uptis, offers potential to do away with tire flats and blowouts and can potentially lead to a reduction in use of raw materials for manufacturing tires, and waste from condemned tires. GM says it contributes to its vision for “a world with zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion”.
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| The Michelin Uptis prototype airless tire
image: General Motors
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Airless tires, if implemented, can also reduce the number of punctured or damaged tires that are abandoned before the end of their life cycles, and could make tires last longer by doing away with irregular wear and tear caused by over- or under-inflation of tires. With 200 million tires currently abandoned each year, the use of airless tires pose a good benefit to the automobile world.
The video below — from Michelin — sheds more light on the airless tires:
