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This idea calls for heating elements in the grooves of the tire. The heating element will melt the snow and ice under the treads and improve traction.
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The heater would need to be massively powerful to transfer sufficient heat in the time available. |
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By turning the snow to water, I would think you'd be decreasing traction, not increasing it. |
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In my admittedly limited experience (I've only driven across the country twice) I've found that it's easier to keep traction on water than on ice. A properly designed tire can spit the water right out the back. Not so easy with ice. |
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This would be pointless if the car was in motion. If you were stopped, you would be melting snow into water that would turn into ice making harder for the unfortunate who don't own the melting tire. |
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Cool Ice skates for your car. This is the exact method used to make a low friction surface under an ice skate blade. Could make driving REAL interesting |
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Melting the snow/ice would only help if you reached the ground underneath; wheels have better traction on wet ground than they have on snow or ice. But if you only melt the surface, you would achieve the ice-skate effect, and would get nowhere, especially if you were stuck. And driving on such a surface would be headless sliding in the direction your inertia takes you; most probably into a wall. |
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I just recently thought of this idea after reading one of your previous ideas, 21 Quest, but I still don't know how you'd be able to heat the tires... |
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Would it work better to blow hot air in front of the tires? |
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Try it. Point a blow-torch at a pile of snow and measure how long the snow takes to melt. Then calculate how far your car would travel in that time. |
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Good one, [angel]! I love it when someone comes up with a practical analogy. |
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My experience with winter driving tells me that dry cold snow gives much better traction than does melting wet snow. I wouldn't want anything to partially melt snow, it must melt it clean away. |
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Heating elements in the grooves of a tire aren't going to be melting snow under the treads very well. Put the elements into the knobs of the treads, maybe. |
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This idea is going to take massive amounts of electrical power, probably much more than a car can develop. It might be rather tricky to get the electricity from the engine to the tires. |
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A REALLY powerful laser aimed at the ground in front of the car would probably do it. Just remember to switch it off when stationary. We don't want to start frying pedestrians. |
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like the nuclear powered laser they used un The Core (movie where they burrowed to the center of the earth). But a tad less powerful. |
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how about cooling the tires to prevent the ice-skate effect. i'm sure it's even more impractical to cool the tires to heat them though |
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[+] Since I posted one just like this before noticing it existed. Perhaps high pressure air jets that blow air directly on to the tread to remove the water created by the melted ice would work. |
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We're on the same page, acura. I had the same thought a few days ago about the hot-air blowers. |
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