Nissan Ready To Implement Airless Tire Technology

Nissan has filed a patent for a new airless tire, which is not a new concept by any means. CarBuzz discovered the patent, filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization. Goodyear was first out of the gates with its airless tire technology in 2022, and a year later, Michelin introduced the Uptis.

The Japanese brand's airless tire uses the same concept. Because the tire isn't fully enclosed due to the lack of a sidewall, an airless tire needs to be made up of various spokes arranged in a way to sufficiently soak up bumps and provide grip.

According to Nissan, the main problem is the load forces on the spokes closest to the ground. A quick fix would be to make the outer part of the airless tire more robust, but Nissan says this would lead to a reduced contact patch, an inability to soak up imperfections, and difficulty handling lateral force when steering.

Nissan's solution is a plurality of elastic spokes provided radially from an outer circumferential side of a wheel toward an inner circumferential side of a tread. In short, it will have loads of elastic spokes between the wheel and the tread. For the record, Ford has already started developing wheels for airless tires.

This way, the load acting on the tire is transferred to the spokes, which means the exterior tread takes less of a beating. According to Nissan, these tires can be applied to four-wheeled vehicles, two-wheeled vehicles, industrial vehicles, bicycles, and a host of other stuff that need tires.

Why are so many high-profile manufacturers suddenly interested in airless tires when the existing solution we have is so perfect? It's most likely due to incoming Euro 7 emissions regulations, which have fierce new restrictions for both brakes and tires.

High-profile automotive industry leaders lashed out at these new regulations, and they eventually won the battle. Still, no changes were made to the restrictions that aim to regulate the particulate emissions from brakes and tires. We're not sure whether an airless tire would be more environmentally friendly, but there are some cool upsides.

Airless tires don't get punctured and aren't as easily damaged. We suppose less damage means fewer tires that need to be replaced, so it's kinder to the environment when you look at it from that angle.

Still, we're not quite sure how we'd feel about hammering a Nissan Z equipped with these bad boys Nissan around a track.