PopularMechanics | The tire of the future is a ball. An unbelievably sophisticated, nature-inspired, magnetic-levitation-infused ball. Goodyear just revealed
its vision for a concept tire that's intended for the self-driving car
of tomorrow. It's called Eagle-360, and it's totally round.
Why
put a car on a quartet of glorified mouse trackballs? Goodyear says the
3D-printed tires will have a larger contact patch with the ground,
allowing for more control. The design lets the tires hurl water away via
centrifugal force. But the big reason is that spherical tires can be
essentially omnidirectional.
PopularMechanics | Stronger than steel and a
fraction of the weight, carbon fiber is a brilliant invention. Has been
for decades. Junior Johnson was building rule-bending Nascar racers out
of the stuff back in the '80s. But even with all that time to come up
with new sourcing and production methods, carbon fiber just won't stop
being expensive. The cheapest new car with a carbon-fiber tub, the Alfa
Romeo 4C, is sized for Stuart Little, yet costs as much as a Mercedes
E-Class. And the real chariots of the carbon gods, the McLarens and
Koenigseggs and Lamborghini Aventadors of the world, are strictly
six-figure propositions. We still haven't managed to mass-produce the
stuff at anything approaching the price of aluminum, let alone steel.
Why hasn't anyone figured out how to make this stuff cost less?
That
question is why I'm here in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy, at
Lamborghini's carbon-fiber facility, laboriously squeegeeing air bubbles
out of a sheet of carbon weave. I want to ask the guys in (black) lab
coats who make this material: Why aren't we rolling around in
carbon-monocoque Hyundais?
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