9.3 Soft Nanocomposites in the Twenty-First Century
181
once it happens how to respond to it can be a big problem for automatic driving.
Airless tire is supposed to afford a solution at the initial stage of the happening.
For example, a weekly journal, Time, selected the airless tire among ‘the 25 Best
Inventions’ [65]. The engineer who was in charge of its development told the reporter
that the product is not simply airless, but design of the tread was also important,
and the commercialization might be 20 years after. The ‘20 years after’ is possibly
suggesting the necessary time for making fit for practical use of automatic driving
as well as airless tires. In the design of the tread, he made full use of 3D printing
technique and explained as follows:
But the most impressive feature may be its 3-D-printed treads, which can be swapped in and
out to accommodate various road conditions-without changing the tire itself.
The photo in the article shows a black-colored layer on the top tread, which
suggests the use of CB-loaded rubber vulcanizates even in the airless tire.
Further on tires, a high function tire that sends the road information obtained by
the sensor on the tread surface to the navigation system, a tire of the inner tube of
which is divided into three parts, and the changing air pressure at each part to modify
the tire shape enables its smooth driving in accordance with the road conditions, an
electricity-generating tire while driving by thermoelectric and piezoelectric devices
attached on the tire, and others are mentioned in recent Internet articles. The last
one may be useful for tires to be equipped to the electric vehicles. These examples
are not necessarily related with automatic driving, but they are the reflection of the
importance of tires in the transportation society of this century.
One of the issues toward the versatile sustainable development of the automobiles
is an urgent reduction of those using internal combustion engines operated by gasoline
or diesel oil. This is crucial for an effective control of global warming, because of the
still increasing automobiles all over the world. So-called hybrid vehicles (HVs) are
certainly playing a role [9], but in the long run HV is not satisfactory for countering
global warming. In fact, HV is not recognized among zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs).
Moreover, fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are still under development [9], and the initial
possibility of FCV may possibly be a low-speed one equipped with solid tires (not
pneumatic).
Consequently, electric vehicles (EVs) are reasonably assumed to be the most
likely candidate for the next-generation cars. At the background of this tendency, the
EV shift, there is a technical factor that matters much in a near future: EV is driven
by an electric motor, which are much less complex than the internal combustion
engine, in which oil is burned to extract energy; hence, materials of engine are highly
resistant to a high temperature and the design of it is complicated. Both theoretically
and practically, the electric motor is structurally much simpler than the combustion
engine, as seen in lots of electrical appliances at home. If a combustion engine is
used at home, it is surely installed not inside but outside of the house. In other words,
for a new company the barrier to joining the EV manufacturing business becomes
much lower compared with newly starting the traditional internal combustion engine
car manufacturing. In fact, Tesla did start the EV development afresh, and many IT
companies are now interested much in automatic driving of EV.
181
once it happens how to respond to it can be a big problem for automatic driving.
Airless tire is supposed to afford a solution at the initial stage of the happening.
For example, a weekly journal, Time, selected the airless tire among ‘the 25 Best
Inventions’ [65]. The engineer who was in charge of its development told the reporter
that the product is not simply airless, but design of the tread was also important,
and the commercialization might be 20 years after. The ‘20 years after’ is possibly
suggesting the necessary time for making fit for practical use of automatic driving
as well as airless tires. In the design of the tread, he made full use of 3D printing
technique and explained as follows:
But the most impressive feature may be its 3-D-printed treads, which can be swapped in and
out to accommodate various road conditions-without changing the tire itself.
The photo in the article shows a black-colored layer on the top tread, which
suggests the use of CB-loaded rubber vulcanizates even in the airless tire.
Further on tires, a high function tire that sends the road information obtained by
the sensor on the tread surface to the navigation system, a tire of the inner tube of
which is divided into three parts, and the changing air pressure at each part to modify
the tire shape enables its smooth driving in accordance with the road conditions, an
electricity-generating tire while driving by thermoelectric and piezoelectric devices
attached on the tire, and others are mentioned in recent Internet articles. The last
one may be useful for tires to be equipped to the electric vehicles. These examples
are not necessarily related with automatic driving, but they are the reflection of the
importance of tires in the transportation society of this century.
One of the issues toward the versatile sustainable development of the automobiles
is an urgent reduction of those using internal combustion engines operated by gasoline
or diesel oil. This is crucial for an effective control of global warming, because of the
still increasing automobiles all over the world. So-called hybrid vehicles (HVs) are
certainly playing a role [9], but in the long run HV is not satisfactory for countering
global warming. In fact, HV is not recognized among zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs).
Moreover, fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are still under development [9], and the initial
possibility of FCV may possibly be a low-speed one equipped with solid tires (not
pneumatic).
Consequently, electric vehicles (EVs) are reasonably assumed to be the most
likely candidate for the next-generation cars. At the background of this tendency, the
EV shift, there is a technical factor that matters much in a near future: EV is driven
by an electric motor, which are much less complex than the internal combustion
engine, in which oil is burned to extract energy; hence, materials of engine are highly
resistant to a high temperature and the design of it is complicated. Both theoretically
and practically, the electric motor is structurally much simpler than the combustion
engine, as seen in lots of electrical appliances at home. If a combustion engine is
used at home, it is surely installed not inside but outside of the house. In other words,
for a new company the barrier to joining the EV manufacturing business becomes
much lower compared with newly starting the traditional internal combustion engine
car manufacturing. In fact, Tesla did start the EV development afresh, and many IT
companies are now interested much in automatic driving of EV.