Is This Three-Piece Concept The Wheel Of The Future?
This is what the wheel of the future might look like, if Continental gives its New Wheel Concept the green light. It’s not totally reinventing the idea – it’s still round and looks very much like a wheel – but it’s built differently and it’s cleverer than it looks.
It’s a three-piece affair, with an outer ‘rim well’ and an inner ‘carrier star’ that bolt together. A huge aluminium brake disc then bolts to the star while a caliper sits inside the disc, itself bolted to the wheel carrier on the axle.
Continental says it’s a lot lighter than current designs, and it’s perfect for bloated electric cars not just for that reason, but also because EVs are increasingly relying on regenerative braking, which means Continental’s New Wheel Concept would last the lifetime of the car. The discs wouldn’t go rusty, either, and only the brake pads would ever need replacing.
The larger disc gives a wider friction radius and more stopping power, allowing for smaller, less powerful and lighter calipers that save even more on materials and weight. The design, the company says, is built for small and medium-sized electric cars. The narrow, tall shape mimics the likes of those on the BMW i3. We think they look pretty cool, but we’ll open up the floor…
Via: Continental
Comments
so was there a concern about square wheels….because you know nothing wrong with square things…
#Cheekydisklok
New technology my face, 3 piece wheels have been a thing since the 90s:
Did you even read the article? What 90s wheels had integral brake disks?
Didn’t Clarkson say aluminium is as good of a material to make brake disks out of as cheese or summing?
I assume that when you need to replace a tyre, that you undo the 5 (questionably small and short) studs at each point of the star, and take off just the wheel rim, rather than the full wheel itself? If that’s the case, the rim wouldn’t work on a tyre balancer? And only having 5 studs attaching the rim to the wheel seems like an awfully low number considering how many studs normal 2 and 3 piece wheels use.
Otherwise, it looks like you’d have to remove the centre cap, the 5 regular studs, then take off the entire unit, including brake disc and caliper?
It’s a cool design, but I’m skeptical of the real world conveinience of it
How do you change the wheel:
1) Unscrew ‘carrier star’
2) Somehow unscrew brake disc
3) Take off brake caliper
4) Lose bolts at the side of the highway
5) Forget where you put your tools
6) Get frustrated and burn the car down
Am I right?
so you need to take the brake caliper off every time you take the tire off? or do you separate the rim well and the carrier star to take the tire off?
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