Gas prices don’t seem to be going down anytime soon and ways to save are becoming the topic of discussion at the water cooler and blogs everywhere. W
hen reading about hypermiling and other extreme methods, tire pressure always seems to make it in the mix. Tire pressure is consistently one of the most ignored maintenance routines driver’s pay attention to.
In fact, in a feature story over at MSNBC that you can read here, shows the implications and seriousness of ignoring tire pressure. The Rubber Manufacturers Association completed a major survey detailing just how bad driver’s ignore tire pressure. According to the survey, more driver’s wash their car, three out of four, than correctly check their tire pressure, one in five. Only 20 percent of driver’s on the road even know how to check their tire pressure correctly if they wanted to!
The chances of having low tire pressure is 33.3% or 1 in 3 cars on the road. This leads to over 30,000 injuries and nearly 700 fatalities every year. These statistics are provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). While accidents and injuries are the long lasting effects of low tire pressure, daily effects can be seen in your gas bill. The U.S. Department of Energy says that American’s waste 3.56 million gallons of gas or $14.2 million in gas a day at $4 a gallon due to tire pressure. For every penny increase in the gas price, an additional $35,600 is lost in low tire pressure gas loss in America.
If history continues to repeat itself a
s it often proves to do, drivers on the road are not going to become better educated or more diligent in checking and adjusting their tire pressure. An interesting innovation by the tire company Michelin, could possibly solve this problem for every driver on the road if fully implemented. It is said this new innovation for tires has been in development since 1995 and was slated to land on pavement in a mass roll-out by 2010.
Michelin’s innovative invention was the airless tire that combined the tire and wheel bringing about the name, TWEEL. TWEEL stems from the combination of the words (Tire/WhEEL) to make a catchy product name that is already being prototyped on all types of vehicles, wheelchairs, Segways and other small transportation units.
To understand what exactly the TWEEL is, Michelin explains it well on their website, “Michelin TWEEL is a single non-pneumatic solution instea
d of the traditional tire and wheel combination, made up of a rubber tread bonded to the hub by flexible spokes. The flexible spokes are fused with a deformable wheel that absorbs shocks and rebounds with unimaginable ease. Without the air needed in conventional tires, Michelin TWEEL still delivers pneumatic-like load-carrying capacity, ride comfort and resistance to road hazards.”
In 2006 Michelin won the Gold Medal for Innovation from The Intermat innovation commission in Paris. There were five criteria for Michelin to win the gold medal, they were: 1. Technical Design and technologies: improvement in productivity, ease of maintenance. 2. Economy: lower purchase price and maintenance costs 3. Quality of work carried out. 4. Ease of use, ergonomics, comfort, safety and improvement in working conditions. 5. Environmental friendliness. Meeting all these criteria with high marks the new innovative Michelin TWEEL easily took the gold medal award. TIME Magazine also selected Michelin’s new non-pneumatic innovation as “One of the Most amazing Inventions of 2005.” In addition the TWEEL was featured in Popular Science’s “Best of What’s New” honor in 
the Automotive Technology category.
With a sleek and well thought out technology like the TWEEL, it could not only revolutionize the transportation industry, but could be another weapon in consumers’ arsenal to save on their gas bill. Eliminating the need to monitor tire pressure while producing superior shock absorbing and road hazard invincibility, the TWEEL is set to make roads safer and more environmentally friendly. Other uses that are already beyond just testing can be found in heavy equipment and many military uses. If the time table stays in line with stated remarks from Michelin, these new integrated tire and wheel hybrids will be on cars and rolling down our roads by mid 2010. You can watch live demonstrations of the TWEEL and it’s various uses in this video presentation here.
My good friend Marty explained your phenomenon - petroleum companies help make tires.
There’s your answer.
Freakin’ awesome! I wish there wasn’t a two year wait for them, but hey at least they’re making progress! It’s been a long time since something truly unique has surfaced in the world of tires.
@Douglas - Yeah, what most people don’t realize is that gas is not the only thing made from oil. We’ve still got plastics, rubbers, and a variety of other petroleum products to worry about. In order to reduce our dependency on foreign oil we’ve got to decrase our usage of all these products, unfortunately most of us selfish American’s don’t want to inconvenience ourselves.
The big thing keeping them from adoption will be the strange look. House it in a normal looking tire shell and the adoption rate problem due to looks drops to 0. Market them and always mention the MPG air pressure failings of other tires and there will be no resistance except for pricing.
@Cody - Most of us selfish Americans can’t afford new products until the initial costs drop to or below the initial costs of established goods. I.E. Hybrids. They save money in the long run(if you own them long enough to pay them off) but costs put them out of reach to the average and lower class Americans. Which are the ones most in need of their benefits.
Enjoy your upper-middle class elitist attitude I’m going back to contributing useful ideas to solve the problems we face.
@ Headzero - From what I remember, they were going to put ’sides’ on the tire for market. They’ll look like a regular air type tire. They just have them shown like this for the marketing aspect of it.
Please learn some grammar! it’s DRIVERS - plural - not possessive!
Anyone who believes underinflated tires cause 700 deaths a year is extremely gullible.
It’s hard to believe anything written by someone who can’t form the plural of “driver”.
I remember seeing these when they first came out, and thinking to myself that although they looked awesome, driving in even shallow snow would be sketchy as hell. Imagine those flexible spokes all packed with compacted snow… ugh.
I suppose they could remedy it with an integrated sidewall–I would imagine it would also help with aesthetic appeal. Or even some kind of winter kit.
Also, I wonder how you replace them: can you replace just the tread? Do the flexible spokes wear out, and if so, how long do they last?
Quibbles aside, I really hope they get these on the market soon. I will be first in line.
all vechicles made after 2009 will come with tire air pressure montioring systems. this is going to be requied by law I belive.
Its far more embarrassing to post a comment just to needlessly correct grammar on a website, when the author got his point across, just fine. So please stop wasting the precious space we have on the internet!
OMG can these spelling Nazi’s PLEASE get &@#$ed
These tires look cool.
Uhm… what happens when the tweel ends up full of mud or snow?
I want to put tweels on everything.
Caleb:
It wouldn’t be hard to throw a rubber lining along the side of the wheel so that it looks like a standard wheel. I’m pretty sure they leave it open in these photographs for promotional purposes only, and so that we can see what is on the inside.
“OMG can these spelling Nazi’s PLEASE get &@#$ed”
it’s: ‘Nazis’, NOT a possessive!
@Calab: exactly what I was thinking. It’s still a great idea though.
umm,,congress just required tire pressure monitoring systems on all vehicles built after 04 .
so,, the automakers have put alot of cash into the competing techs ,,,so how long do you think it will be before the tweel is required ?? like 2052? these are awesome , but you better look for a set yourself .
As pointed out on Digg, I’d say the reason why the tweel isn’t being touted as a fuel economy boosting answer to underinflated tires is that it quite possibly is worse for fuel economy. The tweel is proported to be a more comfortable tire to ride on due to it’s pliability, precisely the effect you get when you have. . . you guessed it. . . underinflated tires.
I would also venture that there is a great deal of concern over worn-out tweels being on the highway. A pneumatic tire will arrive at a point where it will no longer hold air once it gets significantly dangerous to drive on. The more observant of you will likely note several vehicles in a given day that are badly in need of new tires but are still in use by cheap/poor/inattentive drivers. Perhaps there is a fear that these same people will switch to tweels and end up using them beyond their wear limits - quite possibly leading to situations far more dangerous than those encountered by pneumatic tires used beyond their limits.
Mr. Spork brings a point to the table, however, I have a problem thinking this would actually be an issue in getting the wheels out. People are people, and it sounds like you are trying to dumb the processes down beyond what is feasible. I am sure should the tread get thin/weak there would be a way to put in something to allow the driver to feel the problem, or like brakes, make it squeel. After that the responsibility falls on the driver to get off their ass and fix the vehicle.
You are not making it any less dangerous with a tweel than you are with an under inflated tire blowing out and causing a flip over.
As for the under inflated feeling, the tweel rolls differently. The inflatable tire has air that pushes the tire outwards, warping the tread. The tweel does not have any outward thrusting forces to warp how the tread is laid, so it is always perfect. Any additional pressure is absorbed by the inn spokes, not by the bottom/side of the tire. In a inflatable tire when force comes down on the tire, it warps the bottom and sides as the air is pushed back upwards in the tire, the side bulge out and can touch the ground, causing all kinds of problems and wear. In the tweel, the downward force is absorbed in the spokes, distributing it along the entire lower spoke section, leaving a level perfect traction base on the bottom of the tire. This means less wear all the time, and 100% “proper” inflation through the life of the tire.
Lastly, you want to really enjoy reading the gas prices, go back to when gas was cheap. Look at the amount of oil futures. Follow that time line until you see oil futures get like 9.9 billion suddenly pumped into them (*hint, check when Bush came in office) and see immediately what happened to the price of gas. Continue to follow that line.. each time the oil futures is increased, the price of gas increases as well…. I think you will no longer even bother to listen to the bullshit that comes out of our govt concerning the price of fuel anymore.
Rubber comes from trees, not petroleum. Synthetic rubber comes from petroleum and is not actually rubber at all. Most car tires are made of all synthetic rubber. The heavier a vehicle is, the more the real rubber / synthetic rubber mix has to be. Large semi and larger vehicle tires must be made of solid rubber because synthetic rubber can not hold up under the weight.
I don’t think it’s clear at this point just how safe a worn-out tweel is compared to a tire blow-out. Blow-outs can be pretty catastrophic, and they can be pretty ho-hum. Had one the other day at about 85 MPH. The ride got rough and seemed to get rougher the slower I went, pulled over and checked, yep, a fist-sized hole in the sidewall. Not saying my experiences are typical, just that there is a WIDE range of experiences and if 80% of blowouts are controllable and 80% of worn-out tweel failures are UNcontrollable, there’s a problem. Until the tweel is actually on the highway we really won’t know how real-world drivers react to their failures, how different vehicles handle tweel failures, how traffic dynamics in general are affected by tweel failures, etc. Blow-outs, we have a pretty good handle on since they’ve been happening since the dawn of automobiles.
Not saying that tweels are dangerous, or that they should never come out because of this, simply trying to answer the question “where are the tweels”. I’m just suggesting that they are still in testing and that the manufacturer is wanting to approach release in a more delicate manner, a manner which will limit accidents and possible litigation.
Also, putting a system in place to warn drivers that their tweel is worn-out will not work. A failing tire warns it’s owner by not holding air anymore and becoming so much of an inconvenience that it just has to be replaced. Even at that I myself in my younger years drove on bald tires that I had to inflate every morning because I was flat broke. I’d like to say that I was smarter than everyone else, but I can’t and so I can’t say a “service tweel soon” light on my dash, or a constant squeaking (like my brakes emitted every day during that period) would have caused me to dash right out and replace them. I’ve seen other drivers limp by on far more dangerous conditions for months, if not years. I’ve seen drivers who allow their brake lights to go out completely, even ignoring several pull-overs, choosing instead to just go on creating incredible risks every yard of highway they travel. I’ve seen rotors worn down so bad that they LOOKED like tweels, yes, no surface left, just the fins. I’ve seen trailers piled high with scrap metal and I’ve seen washing-machine sized debris fall off of these trailers. Drivers in general have no regard for their own safety or those around them, not enough to throw in an unknown like a tweel and just hope for the best. Again, just an attempt at an answer to the question.
The story is they make so much noise and vibration that you’d want to drive real slow. That’s why they are only used on slow moving vehicles.