The Tech Wheels Keep A Turnin’

Nobody asked me but . . .

In the future, tires and wheels will become smarter and safer. An example is Pirelli’s Safety Wheel System, which the company previewed last year on an SUV rim. The prototype wheel contains a hollow chamber filled with air. If the tire is punctured, a warning light on the dash comes on and a valve in the wheel allows air to pass from the chamber to the tire, maintaining tire pressure until you can safely pull over. This same system compensates for any natural loss of air from the tire, maintaining optimum pressures for nine to 12 months.

Then there’s Michelin’s revolutionary airless, integrated tire/wheel called the Tweel, a deceptively simple-looking hub-and-spoke design that completely eliminates an air-filled tire from the mix. Flexible spokes fused to a flexible wheel deform to absorb shock and rebound with remarkable ease, say Michelin engineers. Even without a cushion of air, the Tweel still delivers the weight-carrying capacity and ride comfort of a conventional wheel-tire combination. But don’t look for production versions for at least five years.

Available now to eliminate the leading cause of excessive tire wear and catastrophic failure—low tire pressure—is Pirelli’s X-Pressure system. A tiny sophisticated sensing system replaces the conventional valve stem cap. If the pressure in the tire drops by about 10 percent, the color of the top of the “Smart” cap changes from white to red. A set of four costs about $50. Future X-Pressure versions will be linked to your cell phone or your vehicle’s onboard information screen.

Farther down the road is Pirelli’s Cyber Tire, a tire with a memory. It communicates real-time information to the driver via the car’s onboard information system, including tire operating pressures and temperatures, dimensions of the footprint area, road-surface typology, and the vertical load exerted on the tire. As yet, the Cyber Tire doesn’t talk—but that could be next.