Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated 6 million tons of tire fragments. These tiny flakes of plastic, generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, eventually accumulate in the soil, in rivers and lakes, and even in our food. Researchers in South China recently found tire-derived chemicals in most human urine samples.
The reason tires need replacing is because they’re relatively thin. Airless tires aren’t wear-less tires.
Not to mention that airless tires make for a horrible ride.
Actually earlier prototypes were wear-less, from both companies that were developing them.
As for the horrible ride, from what I’ve seen, that’s not a problem. But even if it was perhaps that should be solved by other aspects of the car.
There is, fundamentally, one measurement that defines everything about the performance characteristics of a car: the amount of force it can impart on the road (and vice versa). This single measure defines its limits of acceleration, turning and braking. And what determines how much of that force is available?
The tires, and the coefficient of friction of the rubber compound they’re made of, which is directly related to how quickly they wear. Every possible solution that makes tires wear less will also make cars perform worse.
…Well, short of drastically reducing weight (i.e. making a bicycle instead of a car).
…Or swapping them out for steel and running the thing on rails (i.e. making a train instead of a car).
They’re not prototypes, they exist and they’re called tweels. They’re only really useful for low-speed industrial equipment where ride quality is a low priority.