Hyundai has presented a new wheel and tire design that incorporates built-in snow chains that deploy and retract at the push of a button, potentially putting an end to the fiddly, freezing process of wrapping and removing traditional snow chains.

Hyundai unveils car tires with built-in, push-button snow chains::undefined

  • BearOfaTime@lemm.eeEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    If you’re talking about the portal hub posted recently, that’s tech going back to WWI, and still requires either CV or universal joints (depending on the speed of the shaft). Putting gears in the hub just adds weight. They work fine for off-road vehicles that move slowly, it provides additional clearance. It also offers the opportunity to reduce rotational speeds of the drive shafts (typically by ~66%), enabling the use of u-joints instead of CV joints (which are always required because of suspension travel).

    Hyundai costs less than others for a reason.

    • assembly@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yeah that was the post I was talking about. Their big claim was that the combination of an electric motor close to the hub and the in-hub gears is the key to it all. To your point though, I won’t purchase the first few years of cars that have that as I am sure there will be initial issues that they need to work out. I’m just excited that there are some new approaches being pushed. I got super excited 20 years ago for rotary engines from Mazda and that never took off the way I thought it would. I figured those would be the basis for electric hybrids so what do I know.