Goodyear Presents “Aero”: A Flying Vehicle Tire Concept

It looks like this year’s Geneva Motor Show is slowly turning into the Goodyear Motor Show, by all accounts – after taking everyone’s breaths away with the restored 1950’s Golden Sahara II, Goodyear has unveiled its “Aero” concept tire.

What’s so special about a bunch of tires, you ask?

For one thing, they’re made out of a flexible material that does not have to be inflated and they are designed to rotate either vertically when the car is on the ground and horizontally while flying. Yes, you read that right – Goodyear designed these tires with flying vehicles in mind.

The space between the hub and the tread is made out of fins that act as propellers as the car goes through its ground-to-air transition.

With mobility companies looking to the sky for the answer to the challenges of urban transport and congestion, our work on advanced tire architectures and materials led us to imagine a wheel that could serve both as a traditional tire on the road and as a propulsion system in the sky.

Chris Helsel, Chief Technology Officer at Goodyear

The wheel also features a magnetic propulsion system that helps it get the rotational speeds it needs to lift up the vehicle.

In addition to that, Goodyear also added AI and fiber optic sensors to them and both these features were created in order to help the driver keep a close eye on road conditions and tire wear.

For now, these tires are only a concept, designed mostly with the purpose of sparking a debate about future mobility technologies, so don’t expect our skies to become Jetsons-worthy anytime soon.