SMART airless wheels on an autonomous EV concept
Autonomous EV concept · SMART airless wheels
Pressureless load-bearing system
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Shape Memory Alloy Radial Technology
Air, without
the air.
A new load-bearing structure that replaces pressurized air with advanced materials — no flats, longer life, lower total cost. Born from NASA.
Born from NASA 9 granted patents TIME · Best Inventions Two-time CES Innovation Award LA Times Aerospace Visionaries 2026 20,000+ on the METL waitlist
No air.
Pressure replaced with material
No flats.
No air to lose
Retreadable.
Renew the tread, keep the structure
01 / The core insight
For 100 years, tires have run on air pressure. Pressure is also how they fail.
A pneumatic tire uses air to carry load, absorb shock, and return energy. One puncture collapses all three. A century of mobility built on a single fragile dependency.
Flats & blowoutsFAILURE MODE
Continuous maintenanceDOWNTIME
Performance constraintsLIMITS
Billions discarded yearlyWASTE
02 / Reinventing the tire®
We replaced air pressure with the right material.
Foam and polymer airless tires were heavy and rough. Our Nitinol structure does what air does, elastic like rubber, strong like metal, recovering instantly under load. A new architecture, not a better tire.
Nitinol, nickel + titanium. A shape memory alloy.
The right pressure, permanently heldOUTCOME
Doesn't fail like a pneumatic tireOUTCOME
Little to no tire maintenanceOUTCOME
Retreadable, not disposableOUTCOME
A fraction of the rubberOUTCOME
ELASTIC LIKE RUBBER · STRONG LIKE METAL
How the METL tire works · hover a layer
01Minimal rubber tread
Grip on the outside — and fully retreadable. Renew the tread, keep the structure underneath.
02Nitinol metal skeleton
A shape memory alloy that springs back where air pressure used to be. Elastic like rubber, strong like metal.
03Zero pressurized air
Nothing to puncture, nothing to leak. The hollow structure carries the load where air used to.
04Standard bicycle rim
Mounts on an ordinary wheel — no special hub or tooling. Drops into the bike you already ride.
The METL bicycle tire is coming.
Over 20,000 riders are already on the waitlist.
Join the waitlist →
03 / Validation
From NASA validation to commercial launch.
Proven through paid programs with partners across aerospace, automotive, and mobility, including a CES 2025 proof-of-concept with Hyundai and Kia. Our first consumer tire is in active evaluation with a leading micromobility operator, with a waitlist already past 20,000 riders.
See the full traction story →
Working with
Aerospace primes Leading automakers Leading micromobility operator NASA lunar programs Defense & government
As featured in
Reuters TIME WIRED Automotive News Business Insider Fast Company TechCrunch The Verge Popular Science Engadget
Proof, not promises
Superelastic tire, Jeep-tested
Real-world vehicle testing
Structural shape memory alloys
The core breakthrough
Airless mesh, all-terrain
Defense & space partners
04 / Go-to-market
Start where failure is most expensive.
A phased path from the fastest route to validation toward the whole of global transportation.
Explore the rollout →
01
Micromobility
Fastest route to validation
02
Defense & specialty
High-value fleets
03
Passenger & EV
Commercial scale
04
Global transport
Total addressable market
SMART LUNAR TIRE · SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY
05 / Origin · NASA
It began as a tire for the Moon & Mars.
Our shape memory alloy structure was developed through NASA research for interplanetary mobility, a load-bearing wheel that crosses rock and crater without air, in temperatures no rubber could survive. That same technology is what we're now bringing to every road on Earth.
Inside the technology →
06 / Why now
For the first time, the material, the cost curve, and the market are aligned.
Beyond Air™.
Material, cost, and market have finally converged. A genuinely new approach to the airless tire — built on advanced materials, not air — is no longer a question of if, only how fast. We're building it now.
Always
At its target pressure — never lost, never checked
3–5×
Designed to outlast a conventional tire
100yrs
The tire, essentially unchanged
Tires are just the beginning.
The material that replaces air in a tire replaces it everywhere load meets the ground: across mobility, automotive, and aerospace.
Next · Technology
See how we replaced air with the right material.
The technology →
SMART TIRE
Beyond Air™.
Recognition
LA Times Studios Defense & Aerospace Visionaries 2026
Named one of TIME's Best Inventions
Two-time CES Innovation Awards
Los Angeles Headquarters
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Hawthorne, CA 90250
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THE SMART TIRE COMPANY, INC. © 2026