If you are one of the many people in the world who knows little about cars and even less about tires, you might be interested to find out that there is a new prototype for tires. It helps to answer the question of how much time do I have before I need new tires, without risking an accident.
Your car’s tires are, simply put, the most important bit of equipment on your car; they are literally where the rubber meets the road, and keeping them in their best condition is paramount in maintaining your vehicle’s performance and safety. Tires are a consumable part that eventually wears out, but it can be difficult to tell how worn a tire is simply by looking at it. And who has time to always be going to the mechanic to have them checked?
Designers Gao Fenglin and Zhou Buyi hope that their Discolor Tyre concept can help with that. The Discolor Tyre is a conceptual tire design that looks like your average black rubber tire, but features a layer of bright-orange rubber that is molded and embedded within. When the tire has worn down to the legal minimum level (after about 20,000 km or 12,400 miles) that orange rubber is exposed and can be easily seen from curbside by the driver. When you see orange, then it’s time to replace the tire. It sounds so simple and such simplicity is conveniently complemented by high effectiveness.
Any shade-tree mechanic and driveway enthusiast already knows the penny trick for measuring tread depth. Also, most modern tires already have some sort of small treadwear indicator bar, but most casual drivers don’t know to look for such a subtle indicator. A tire that implements this bright-orange Discolor Tyre technology could help casual drivers to visually check how worn their tires are and to spot potentially unsafe rubber without the aid of pocket change.
So never fear, with any luck these tires will hit the market sooner rather than later and the so very real risk of totaling your car after not realizing how bad your tires are is reduced almost to nil.
