The News Wheel
No Comments

These Wheels Make Cars Look Like Life Glitched Out

Decrease Font Size Increase Font Size Text Size Print This Page

Have you ever been playing a sandbox-style video game, such as Grand Theft Auto, when suddenly something in the coding goes wrong and moving items suddenly just start moving in ways that they clearly shouldn’t?

These wheels are like that.

Those are called omnidirectional wheels, and are usually used on things like forklifts that need to get around crowded warehouses. Also usually, they are composed of a series of spindles set around the wheel. This therefore unique set was apparently created by a man named William Liddiard as a proof of concept, with which he hopes to sell the idea to investors.

The wheels, Liddiard claims, are designed to simply bolt onto a car and work, although based on the video, they are somehow controlled by someone in the passenger seat rather than the driver’s seat.

 

Liddiard makes a number of claims about the tires, including that they are designed for all weather (Liddiard wrote that the tires wouldn’t lose grip in rain since the round design would push water to the side) and road conditions, are turned using 24,000 pounds of torque, “can” be equipped with tire treads (quotation marks his) and are capable of high speeds.

That video above comes from Liddiard’s YouTube channel that appears to have been made exclusively to market these wheels, as it has no other videos and no other activity, beyond Liddiard responding to comments. It seems very inconclusive whether this will appeal to tire makers, or whether its design makes it practical enough for them to decide to build. Without any other information, we will simply have to wait and see if, in 40 years or so, DMVs are getting rid of the maneuverability tests, since parallel parking is paired with perpendicular driving.

News Sources: Gizmodo, William Liddiard via YouTube