Have you guys heard of the Michelin Tweel? It's new to me. Sounds like Michelin is trying to produce it - "the next generation of tires." Interesting! I would think it would only be a good item in the summer time. Snow and ice could cause problems... I also have to imagine that when it fails, it REALLY fails!...but that is just my imagination going. View attachment 20484 View attachment 20483 View attachment 20482
They've been promoting this thing for years, I think I saw it at the USGP in 2002 or 3 (or 4). It seems to work, but I am guessing we haven't seen any for sale because the cost of a new set of tires would be insane. You would have to buy a new set of wheels every time you wanted to change tires, for autocross people, that means annual wheel changes. I also don't know about the weight of them or their ability to produce larger sizes like 18" with low-pro tires.
If the production model has closed sidewalls I don't understand how the picture in post #3 would work? Unless the sidewall is just attached to the inner and outside diameters and the center vanes are floating. I dunno. I don't like it. Seems unnecessary. Plus, I don't see how the handling could be very good. I feel like the car would be very floaty.
These are reasons why this hasn't moved into any sort of production in the 8 years its been around. Also cost. This is basically trying to "reinvent the wheel" but very haphazardly.
there isn't much support to prevent the wheels from twisting relative to the tires, so if you try and accelerate hard or brake hard, it would be super sluggish. But that could be fixed with a different design for the tire spokes. This does have potential to be really rigid in some directions and soft in others if it's designed right.
