Honeycomb solid rubber tyres

[jcamp34]

Have noticed a lot of rental bikes in Shenzhen have solid tires with two rows of staggered holes and this has increased over the last few years.

Wondering if anyone has tried this type of tire on normal western roads. Potholes are pretty rare in Shenzen and the increase in use on rental bikes suggest lower cost on spokes, rims etc. While there are plenty of bike air filling things around with rental company branding the only time I saw someone using one it looked like a private bike/owner.

Searching here doesn't seems to find anything

 

[Comrade]

Potholes are pretty rare in Shenzen

What about road debris? That's really an issue in any dense urban environment. Especially where the culture of cleanliness is still relatively new. I suspect that's the primary driving factor for airless tires.

 

[sleepy_tired]

I expect that one of the reasons they like those tires because it's expected to last the lifetime of the bicycle. Were as normal tires need to be replaced periodically.

They can just shove the bicycle out into the public and those tires will just last until the bicycle disintegrates. No need to track mileage or send people out to replace worn out tires. Just engineer the entire bike to last X so many years or months and then throw the entire thing away.