The Future of Tires...the TWEEL!

Michelin views the tweel and the next step in the evolution of tires. Fifty years ago, their invention of the radial tire revolutionized the industry and is still the industry standard. They hope the tweel will follow down a similar path.

The beauty behind the tweel is that is a strikingly simple looking hub and spoke design that alleviates the need for air pressure while still providing the performance only seen from pneumatic tires. The spokes are fused to the wheel which will deform to absorb the shock and rebound with ease. With the air needed by conventional tires no longer necessary, the tweel will provide you with high grade performance in weight-carrying capacity, ride comfort, and will minimize the threat of any road hazard.

Michelin has discovered that tweels can be tuned independently from each other. This allows for a customized optimization in vertical stiffness (which affects ride comfort) and lateral stiffness (which affects handling and cornering). Doing so can push the tweel past conventional tires in overall performance. Recent test of the tweel prototypes have demonstrated that it is within a five percent of the rolling resistance and mass levels of current pneumatics. This means within one percent of the fuel economy of the original equipment fitment. Michelin was also able to increase lateral stiffness by five-fold, which makes the tweel exceptionally responsive in its handling capabilities.