Michelin Tweel production begins

Michelin Tyres has set the revolutionary Tweel branded tyres into production at their Piedmont, South Carolina plant in the United States of America. The Tweel will be used for commercial applications to begin with. An investment of $50 million has gone into the new plant.

The Tweel concept was envisaged at the Michelin Americas Research Company in Greenville, South Carolina. The Tweel is a non-pneumatic tyre bringing together the tyre and wheel assembly into one unit. The TWEEL comprises a rigid hub connected to a shear beam by means of flexible, deformable polyurethane spokes, all functioning as a single unit. Since the Tweel has no air, there is no worry of a flat tyre, something that plagued off the road applications like, construction, landscaping, refuse/recycling and agriculture.

The new plant gives Michelin the ability to increase output of its award-winning Michelin X Tweel SSL skid-steer tyres and begin production of the new Michelin X Tweel TurfTM as original equipment supplier to John Deere. “Differentiating us from competitors, the TWEEL airless radial tire is the industry’s first commercialized airless radial solution and verifies Michelin’s leadership for the next generation of mobility,” said Ralph Dimenna, head of Michelin Tweel Technologies.

The new manufacturing facility is spread across 135,000 square feet and is Michelin’s tenth plant in the region and sixteenth in the USA.