Airless tire concepts are not new, but they were never adopted in the mainstream vehicles. The first commercial project was materialized by Polaris way back. Introduced during the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show, the Toyota airless tire concept includes a band of rubber encircling a plastic-aluminum hub. Toyota chief engineer Takao Sato talked about in detail during an interview with Bloomberg.
He said, right now the concept tires weight almost the same as the normal air-filled tires but with the advancement in technology, each tire can shed 11 pounds of weight, which would significantly reduce the overall weight of the car, thus balance negative weight gains credited to electric motors and associated battery packs. The lesser a vehicle weighs, the higher could be its electric range.
Toyota is taking help of Sumitomo Rubber to manufacture the airless tires, and is currently testing them on kei cars and golf carts. This will be the first of its kind large-scale experimenting of airless tires.
The biggest demanding factor for Toyota and Sumitomo would be the rolling resistance of airless tires, which is around 10-20 percent poorer than a typical modern tire, thus making them less efficient in working. Once succeeded in making them more efficient, they would be a good fit for electric cars and will be in the same range as the normal tires. However, do not expect them before 2025.