Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated 6 million tons of tire fragments. These tiny flakes of plastic, generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, eventually accumulate in the soil, in rivers and lakes, and even in our food. Researchers in South China recently found tire-derived chemicals in most human urine samples.
Does anyone know of another efficient mode of transportation that has near-zero surface friction?
Because that would be a gamechanger
There are some vehicles that go on iron wheels, on a special kind of iron road that are very efficient. Only bad parts are costly initial investment and difficulties to scale up if the existing network gets overloaded (such as the Swedish rail system who has been over “maximum” capacity for a long time which has put needed maintenance on hold at many places)
Maybe there’s some kind of a wheel, like a metal wheel that could just glide across narrow metal surfaces that could follow a set path….
imagine if it had a flange, so around turns the wheels could hook into the the metal surfaces so they wouldn’t go off them, that would sure be neat
Actually the flanges are only an additional safe guard. The train wheels are actually a bit cone shaped which makes then self-centering on their own, even without the flange: https://youtu.be/Nteyw40i9So
Hovercrafts have been around for ages. I’m not sure that the random driver would love using one though.
I somehow doubt they would have less particles from friction. They usually use a cushion which touches the ground.
The imagination of a busy intersection with common people driving hovercrafts is funny, though. Or imagine driving on slopes.
Hyperloop theoretically, practically who knows.