Goodyear is going to test the utility of airless tires on urban roads. The recipients of the new wheels will be Local Motors' 3D printed autonomous shuttles Olli (can scarcely be printed on equipment like the Craftbot Plus Pro;) ) put into trial operation in Florida.
Goodyear and Local Motors have partnered for nearly three years. Local Motors is probably the world’s first automotive company to successfully introduce 3D printing of not just small functional components and decorative parts but of whole vehicle bodies. For this, the manufacturer uses BAAM 3D printers — large-format additive systems by Cincinnati Incorporated that print carbon fiber-filled granular ABS plastic.
Olli is an unmanned minibus and Local Motors' first mass-produced 3D printed product. Before that, the company released prototype Strati and LM3D Swim two-seaters, but in single copies. Olli, on the other hand, have been employed in the USA, Italy, Germany, Australia, and Saudi Arabia: mainly in university campuses and business centers, but these shuttles can also be seen in the Yellowstone National Park, at the US Marine Corps base in Miramar, and in Berlin, where the European subsidiary of Local Motors is based. In 2019, the minibuses were upgraded to the current version 2.0.
Driving students to Italian campuses or carrying boxes of ammunition and oranges to American military bases is all good but not enough. Local Motors wants to see its minibuses in autonomous operation on city streets, and there is really some progress in this direction: for example, in July last year, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority issued the transport company Beep a permit for trial operation of Olli shuttles on its territory.
Goodyear, too, has something to offer: the renowned tire manufacturer has been playing with the idea of airless wheels for a long time, not without looking at its main competitor Michelin, who also managed to demonstrate developments in this regard. The very idea of airless tires is based primarily on increasing reliability and service life, and this fits perfectly into the concept of unmanned public transport. Hence the collaboration between Goodyear and Local Motors: for several years, prototypes of airless tires have been used in Olli, tested at the Goodyear proving ground, demonstrated at exhibitions, and will now be employed on Florida roads.
“As mobility evolves, we feel that tires can transform the way we move and alternative airless architectures are ideal, particularly in the emerging autonomous transportation environment,” said Michael Rachita, Goodyear’s senior program manager for airless tire development and implementation. “This is an important milestone as we look to advance mobility today and as we look to introduce the first completely sustainable and maintenance-free tires by the end of the decade.”
