Self-regenerating tires

Juniper Foo | Sep 27, 2007

Self-driving cars, self-parking, self-repairing paint… and now self-healing tires? Gee, who needs a mechanic after this? Michelin says it uses manufacturing techniques which mold the tread of the XDA5 in three dimensions. What that means to us commuting plebs is the tire features a tread that somehow regenerates itself as it wears off. If we dumb this down further, the tread sorta acts like an onion. As the tire wears, the tread reveals new grooves and tread blocks within. Once again, technology aping nature.

Unfortunately, this isn't multi-layered, so you'll not be getting immortal treads that last forever. Just a touted 30 percent extension in tread life over the standard ones.

No word on whether these will roll out to passenger cars, when or, yikes, what the bill will cost you for getting into the high-tech groove. What we'd love is for somebody to come up with Transformer-type cars, souped-up convertibles which can morph from boring family saloons into a choice of fast car like an Aston Martin DB5 or 2008 Dodge Viper SRT10 for the weekend. Yeah!

Heads up from InventorSpot.com; source AutoChannel

Filed under: Gadgets
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