No Air In Your Tires? Not A Problem In The Future, Goodyear Says

A tire with no air in it usually ruins your day, but tire manufacturers such as Goodyear are developing “airless” tires, part of an effort to create maintenance-free tires for the coming wave of battery-powered, electric vehicles and autonomous driving.

A big part of the appeal for “mobility as a service” is to get more operating hours, annual miles, and value, out of the same vehicle. That’s in contrast to a privately owned vehicle, which sits around most of the time, costing money for insurance, taking up valuable space, and depreciating.

In that context, fixing flat tires, and other problems caused by flat tires, is another major source of downtime, said Chris Helsel, senior vice president, global operations, and Chief Technology Officer for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio.

“In the autonomous space, we have lots of experience in commercial trucks, where 60% of roadside incidents are because of lost air in tires. In autonomous vehicles, if you can take air out of tires, you could unlock more uses,” Helsel said in a recent phone interview.

The tire industry uses the term “non-pneumatic” tires to describe solid tires. Goodyear recently announced successful durability testing of its non-pneumatic tires at speeds up to 100 miles per hour at its Akron Proving Grounds, and maneuverability testing up to 55 miles per hour.

Durability and “up-time” are potential virtues of non-pneumatic tires, Helsel said. On the other hand, cost and weight are challenges.

“In a traditional tire, air carries the load,” he said. “And air is a pretty cheap material to carry a load, right? The challenge with weight in non-pneumatic tires is to make it effective enough to carry a load, yet don’t add lots and lots of weight and costs.”

One solution is that rather than a solid ring of rubber, which would be strong but heavy and rough-riding, one design Gooodyear is testing for non-pneumatic tires uses sort of a basket weave of stiffer materials between the wheel and the tread, where the air would be in a traditional tire. (see photo)

Ultimately, Helsel said Goodyear’s  goal is to deliver maintenance-free tires, made with completely sustainable materials, by 2030. “It really is a difficult problem,” he said.