Rather neat, no small accomplishment, a Canadian man named William Liddiard invent these himself. The tire and wheel are specific to each other, but can be mounted on many types of vehicles almost as easily as a standard wheel and tire unit. Unfortunately, they appear a long way from suitable for a road going consumer vehicle. The wheel has rollers, and the tire is essentially a giant rubber “O” ring. The tire is twisted on the wheel by motors allowing it to move the vehicle “sideways” to the usual direction of travel. The problem is that since the tire constantly moves on the wheel, and because of the torsional force... where do you put air in it? These are essentially solid tires, as you may be aware most tires are pneumatic- containing air or nitrogen. This is important to comfort, and several other factors in design including longevity. There are issues with wear and tear, as well as the critical nature of the system and the consumer penchant to not follow care and replacement spec
In short: neat to look at, likely has uses in indistry and special applications, but the cost and complexity of the system, coupled with its other draw backs and lack of a proper bead and pneumatic cushion, will likely mean that without quite a bit of advancement these tires won’t find their way on to road cars. There are a number of legal hurdles alone to clear in order to have these certified as safe for road vehicles, and the price and other factors will probably scare most consumers away. Still a cool invention and probably has its uses.
Just make a car with omniwheels and individual direction and power control for each wheel and sell it as a function over form over comfort car. Who needs "tires" or "comfort" when you have what's basically a perfect drive base
Beyond the general and (in America) almost universal proclivity to pass up cars that physics says are closer to “perfect” for cars that their emotions and marketing make them perceive as “more perfect” and reliance on “cartoon physics” that almost always results in the opposite of a good logical choice in vehicles- beyond the desire for a sloppy lazy boy on wheels that looks “cool”, there’s a practical problem. The suspension in a car doesn’t just make it comfortable. It helps it handle (safety) and protects the car. The more solid or stiff a suspension, the more vibration and force is transferred into the car. That can damage components, and causes fatigue on joints and even the very metal that makes the cars structure. Eventually, or in harsh enough conditions, a car with too tight a suspension can catostrophically fail. Even literally break in two.
Beyond that, a tire acts as a spring of sorts and absorbs small regular imperfections in the road as well as larger ones like pot holes or bumps. This protects the wheel from bends, cracks, and damage. Without the pneumatic action of the tire, wheels would t last very long on most roads, or would need a construction like older cars where the wheels would need serviced and adjusted. Bent or cracked wheels can amplify vibration and thebrelated effects, destabilize handling and braking, reduce fuel mileage, increase power/drive train wear or even cause catastrophic tire failure. It can be a huge safety issue. That’s why most vehicles that travel at speed had solid wheels or tires replaced by pneumatic ones long ago. Beyond comfort there are safety and operational jazz arts as well as cost to consider.
It's a fairly well known consensus that necroing rather old posts (anything more than a month) Serves no purpose but to annoy all the people in the comments of that post
"I'm not bothered go ahead new person and take my opinion as more important than an agreed upon state of annoyance by a large enough portion of the site that a post about it made it to popular"
The thing about manners and etiquette are they an be subjective. Much of the internet sees “necro-ing” a post to be a huge taboo, other parts seem to not mind, especially when that necro has any sort of value. So if you live in a neighborhood with people who think it’s rude to kiss your partner outside the house, or who’s religion doesn’t let them drink- are you obligated to follow their morality? The closest we may get to an answer is that you may be compelled to. In society, sometimes the governing body enforces laws of morality. On a forum, a moderator would have that power. Many forums have rules against necro posting, many automatically block posting on older threads or close threads after a certain time. If it is not in the forum rules, or built in to the site, the mods have given the freedom to exercise personal morality. Lucky for those who’s morality dictates necroposting to be a sin- the mods have provided an “unfollow” button so that one may decide for themselves.
Me: slide to the left, slide to the right~