Goodyear thinks it might, with an idea for a completely spherical tyre called the Eagle-360. The benefits are a bigger contact patch with the road, the ability to fling off water with centrifugal force, and being able to roll sideways into tight parking spaces or spin around on the spot. Of course, you would ruin that party trick if the tyres were attached to the car by clunky suspension linkages, which is why the 360s would use magnetic levitation – maglev – to suspend the car over the tyres. They haven’t mentioned much about steering, though…
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