South Korean Company Develops Airless Tires that Will Never Go Flat
It’s been a while since tires have had an update. The last major change to car tires was the addition of steel fabric bands that reinforce the rubber way back in 1948 by the Michelin Company (minus a change to an older type of tires by Goodyear in the 60s that was abandoned during the gas crisis in 1973).
It seems to be about time for innovation.
That’s where South Korea-based Hankook Tires is attempting to step in.
Hankook’s iFlex tire
It first revealed its non-pneumatic tire as a concept back in 2013 as a single unit with the tire and rim combined. Now, though, it has completed testing on its fifth-generation airless tire: the iFlex.
Hankook ran the iFlex through a number of tests to compare it to air-filled tires. It claims that the new tires match conventional tires in all manners of performance: durability, hardness, stability, slalom, and speed. It is also designed specifically to fit on conventional car rims, so they would be usable on modern cars.
Unfortunately for those of us with flat (or recently replaced) tires looking wistfully at these geometric, eco-friendly (and color-cutomizable) tires, the company would not make a guess on when the tires would be ready for sale on the market.
You can watch Hankook Australia’s video about the iFlex below.
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