Eli5: Why are car tires filled with air and not just made completely of rubber?
In: Engineering
Car tires could be made out of rubber, but you would have a very rough ride quality. Since the wheels acts like part of your cars suspension, having them able to quickly and easily flex over various terrain keeps the rest of the car fairly stable. It also helps with maintaining more contact with the road, especially during sudden movements that create excessive or unilateral load. One final note is the wheel weight also impacts your vehicles performance and suspension characteristics slightly. This is why some people use nitrogen and pay extra for light weight racing rims.
The benefits of converting to a solid wheel would remove the burden of flat tires. However, this happens so infrequently that the increased costs to manufacture and buy a solid design isn’t practical, and the cons greatly diminish any reason to consider doing it (at the moment). *Edit: Being able to recycle and reduce production needs is a huge benefit for the tire industry.*
Edit: There’s been some work on creating a successful non-pneumatic tire. [Michelin](https://www.fastcompany.com/90359254/michelins-ingenious-new-tires-ensure-youll-never-get-a-flat-again) has a 2024 target date, and [Bridgestone](https://www.bridgestonetire.com/tread-and-trend/tire-talk/airless-concept-tires) has a nice article on them.
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