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Is that a …. tire? Well yes it is, it happens to be a round tire. A good set of tires is one of the most important things on any vehicle, right after brakes perhaps, but we’ve always seen tires in one shape only: a disk-like flattish circle with a wheel inside to attach to an axle.
How does that work? It levitates magnetically. In other words, the vehicle has semicircular pockets underneath it, and the balls fill those pockets, but don’t touch the sides of their wheelwells because magnets within the tire and within the wheel well hold the vehicle above the tire. No part of the tire is visible from the sides of the vehicle, except what you can see underneath.
Some other interesting ideas Goodyear let us know about: these tires are customized when they’re printed on 3D printers.
Also, the tread is different. There are spongy grooves within the treads, which soften when they become wet (which deepens the grooves to let in more water). This makes them better for various conditions because they adapt to conditions. This is being conceived in terms of biomimicry. The sponges also throw the water away as the tire rotates.
The grooves stiffen when conditions are dry, so drivers have solid, hard tires for performance.
The tires also can widen or narrow to provide optimal tire-to-ground coverage.
Not only that: whereas most tires go forward and backward only, these ones are spheres, which means they can go sideways as well, whether all of them or at different angles from each other.
What else? The tires are computerized (of course). The idea is the tires will inform the cars computers about road conditions.
