I've studied this design a bit. It has some merit. Here are my initial thoughts, maybe others have more info to put into this for discussion.
For a high performance driving car, tire pressures are part of handling and being able to "tune" the cars handling....not sure this can be adjusted with this new spoke design.
For vehicles that drive off road through mud, rocks, etc, I'd have concerns that mud or rocks would get stuck inside the spoke area and cause a huge balance problem when the car gets back to road speeds. Same for parking the car outside in a snow/ice storm and having the spokes impacted with ice....can this cause a balance problem?
Tire pressures are also a measure of the load capacity for a tire. On a 3/4 ton truck, most stock tires are rated to carry the full capacity weight-wise at full pressure....usually 80 psi. But what if you're running around with an empty truck, 80 psi is going to ride like a buckboard. Again, not sure if there is a way to adjust the stiffness of the spokes so they can be softened to relieve ride harshness.
I do see these as a plus for construction equipment, farm equipment and over the road vehicles that have constant weight, speeds and conditions.
When the tread wears out, can you have it economically recapped or is there going to be some sort of exchange program??
Should be interesting to see where this product goes and how they engineer around some of the potential issues.
George
