I had this thought a while back, too. So I looked into it, and tire design is actually fascinating!
Think about it - a many-thousand-pound device travelling 60-100mph and gripping the road only through the bits of tire that contact the road. Each tire, under load, only touches the pavement in a space about the size of a deck of cards.
And these four small contact points have to swing this one+ ton of machine around corners, at speed, without losing contact.
If you think that’s impressive you should look into the tires they use on the moon think what would balloons do in a vacuum? BOOM, so they have to be made out of a synthetic material that is maluable but will reform its structure after being deformed they are actual magic.
I had this thought a while back, too. So I looked into it, and tire design is actually fascinating!
Think about it - a many-thousand-pound device travelling 60-100mph and gripping the road only through the bits of tire that contact the road. Each tire, under load, only touches the pavement in a space about the size of a deck of cards.
And these four small contact points have to swing this one+ ton of machine around corners, at speed, without losing contact.
There’s a lot of good engineering in tires.
If you think that’s impressive you should look into the tires they use on the moon think what would balloons do in a vacuum? BOOM, so they have to be made out of a synthetic material that is maluable but will reform its structure after being deformed they are actual magic.
https://youtu.be/K6vJMIksp6o