Michelin AI Smart Tires Could Redefine Vehicle Safety

Innovative engineers from the tire company Michelin have introduced a smart tire system that leverages AI to communicate vital data. The new system is capable of registering current tire life, wear, and road conditions in real time, opening the door for better performance, efficiency, and safety. Here’s why Michelin’s AI-powered smart tires could revolutionize what it means to be a tire moving forward.

Tire Pressure is Crucial to Vehicle Performance

You already know that your tires are an important part of your vehicle, and if not properly maintained, they can cause rough driving, safety hazards, and lowered fuel economy. Most people aren’t aware that tire pressure is also crucial in handling, braking, and steering systems.

Consequently, you put yourself and your passengers at risk when you drive a vehicle with bald, uneven, over- or under-pressurized tires. For example, an overfilled tire is much more likely to experience a blowout than the same tire at proper PSI. Conversely, underinflated tires destroy your fuel economy and can lead to sluggish performance. As such, it was common for people to manually check their tire pressure regularly to ensure performance.

TPMS Systems Emerge

As time progressed, manufacturers introduced more convenient methods to ensure tire safety. Tire pressure monitoring systems were the answer for the longest time. These systems, which first emerged on luxury European cars in the 1980s, quickly became standard. Specifically, the 1986 Porsche 959 introduced the tech to the market.

In the US, the 1991 Corvette was the first American car to add this helpful feature. Following this, the 2000 TREAD Act made it mandatory that all new vehicles come standard with TPMS functionality. Specifically, this law gave manufacturers until 2007 to include the feature on all vehicles under 10,000 pounds.

Smart Cars Need Smart Tires

Since that time, TPMS systems that warn users of 25% under inflation have become normal. However, cars themselves have experienced a technological renaissance since that time. Today’s vehicles are more tech-heavy, including a multitude of advanced monitoring and tracking systems.

Tire manufacturers, recognizing the modernization of vehicles, made the decision that tires should get smarter alongside cars. Consequently, you have projects like Pirelli’s smart tire and now Michelin’s latest AI systems that take the concept a step further, integrating advanced algorithms and connectivity to enhance monitoring capabilities.

SmartLoad and SmartWear System

The SmartLoad and SmartWear ecosystem is Michelin’s vision for the future of the automotive industry. It includes smart tires embedded with artificial intelligence chips that communicate vital data directly to the vehicle.

Source – Michelin

Interestingly, the system integrates the Sonatus Collector AI platform to capture and decipher key data points from your vehicle’s performance and tire wear. It combines the +100 years of tire development that Michelin possesses with advanced algorithms to increase safety and driver awareness, alongside performance. Here’s what you need to know.

How the SmartLoad and SmartWear System Works

The SmartLoad and SmartWear system combines years of data from Michelin engineers, alongside a custom-built AI algorithm to track tire condition and provide real-time feedback to drivers. This system is designed to help large fleets save on tire costs and improve safety.

The system is predicted to save companies big time, to the tune of $1.68 billion globally by 2030, due to reduced maintenance costs. It also provides individual drivers with a better driving experience. Discussing AI integration into tires, the vice president of Michelin Tire Digital Twin, Ali Rezgui, spoke on how AI opens the door for longer tire life and better performance.

Self-Monitoring Tires

At the core of the SmartLoad and SmartWear ecosystems are advanced algorithms designed to provide real-time insight into your tire wear. It can show exact details like how certain terrain wears your tire and its current tread topography.

Impressively, the AI continually tracks key stats like how hard you brake, the vehicle weight, tire load, and road conditions, including cornering forces and terrain roughness. This data is fed to cutting-edge algorithms where it gets sorted, deciphered, and monitored, enabling users to keep tabs on tire health as easily as checking an email.

MyTires App

Users can monitor their tire health using the MyTires App for free. This easy-to-set-up and use interface provides direct insight into your tire wear and performance. It features helpful data, illustrations, and graphs, all designed to maximize your tire health and your safety. Additionally, it uses an easy setup design that can adjust to your vehicle type in seconds.

Privacy-First Approach

While Michelin isn’t the only tire manufacturer pushing the smart tire concept, it’s the first to take a privacy-first approach. As cars have gotten smarter, they have also gotten a lot nosier. It used to be that you were worried that someone was tracking your license plate from street cameras.

Nowadays, your smart car delivers a ton of personal data to manufacturers without your knowledge. This data is then dissected and sold to third parties without any say on your part. It can be used to personalize ads, track your daily routine, and for much more nefarious reasons like monitoring your network.

Michelin seeks to provide some tranquility to privacy-minded individuals with its decision to keep the majority of vital tire tracking data in the vehicle, versus a cloud setup. By retaining the data onsite, it prevents many of the privacy concerns that have advocates up in arms.

Fully Recyclable

Another important aspect of Michelin’s smart tire push is reducing the environmental impact of tires. Their latest line of sensor-equipped tires will be 100% recyclable, according to company executives. This announcement falls in line with the company’s greater “All-Sustainable” campaign.

Michelin All Sustainable Campaign

Michelin’s all-sustainable campaign is an ambitious plan put forth by the manufacturer in which it seeks to achieve mass production of fully sustainable tires by 2050. The goal is to reduce the negative impact of tires on the ecosystem by designing recycling into the tire manufacturing process.

To date, the company has begun to integrate more recyclable materials, including polystyrene waste, r-PET textiles, and bio-based butadiene. In 2022, it successfully unveiled bus tires that used 58% sustainable materials. Since then, it has made significant investments into recycling startups like Pyrowave and Carbios, whose tech could help push their ambitions forward.

Real Savings

Tire management is a tricky task that can end up costing large fleets millions. Rather than utilizing a time-based method, Michelin’s system enables these firms to gain insight into each tire, enabling accurate end-of-life forecasting. This feature reduces premature replacements and can help prevent tire distortion due to uneven wear or skipped maintenance, like rotations.

Fleet-Level Options

Michelin has also integrated several other features designed specifically for vehicle fleets. For example, the new smart tires will provide fleet managers with precise tire identification, enabling each tire to be tracked and maintenance to be performed accordingly, expanding their life span and reducing replacement costs.

Sonatus

Michelin partnered with the vehicle-focused software developer Sonatus to create the digital landscape and AI systems. The company was founded by IT data center pioneer Jeffrey Chou and has been in operation since 2018. It’s based in California and focuses on building vehicle-specific software for today’s smart cars and systems.

Sonatus is a major player in the market and has secured +$100M in investment funding from major industry participants like Hyundai and Foxconn. Its Sonatus Collector system integrates Generative AI and natural language to track and predict vehicle health.

Sonatus also integrates cloud monitoring and other advanced systems to track data. Notably, it’s currently in use in over 1 million vehicles globally. As such, analysts predict the company will see further integration as vehicles continue to become more tech-reliant.

Michelin Smart Tires at CES 2026: Live Demo Preview

Currently, Michelin’s AI smart tires aren’t available to the public just yet. However, you can catch a sneak peek of this tech in action at this year’s upcoming 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The event, which showcases new and advanced technologies, will host a working demo of the tires.

According to company executives, the demo will feature a pristine 1970 Ford (F -0.19%) Bronco sitting on Michelin Smart tires. While details are still scarce, it appears the vehicle will be set up with its wheels traversing terrain, enabling attendees to track the vehicle’s tire health and wear in real time via the MyTires App.

Michelin’s AI Tire Digital Twin Roadmap

Speaking on Michelin’s larger goal, company executives described how, in the future, their tech will enable manufacturers to create digital twins of tires. These digital twins will allow drivers to see full 3D views of how each tire is wearing, maintenance requirements, and how long it will last in its current condition and with their particular driving style.

How Michelin’s AI Tires Compare to Pirelli Cyber Tyre

Michelin isn’t the first manufacturer to try to reinvent the tire. Competitors like Pirelli have been seeking out ways to make their tires more advanced and connected. The company was among the first to place sensors in its tread. This setup allowed the tires to share tread wear, pressure, temperature, and load.

Pirelli’s smart tires also enable direct V2V/V2I communication, enabling them to communicate with smart roads. This feature is ideal as more autonomous driving systems enter the market. Notably, Pirelli debuted this tech on several recent Aston Martins and has already received several accolades, including being awarded the Most Innovative Tire Technology in 2025 by AutoTech Breakthrough.

National Security Concerns

Pirelli has made significant inroads in its technology. However, it has hit a snag in operations due to its use of cloud systems. Cloud-based systems have become an issue for privacy advocates as they constantly siphon data from the vehicle and share it with manufacturers.

Much of this data is irrelevant to the vehicle’s performance and is only collected to be resold to third parties. While this concern has left privacy advocates stunned, it has done much worse for national security. Already, the government has acknowledged how these systems gather and disseminate personal data without any oversight.

Recognizing these risks, the US government has instituted new software requirements and hardware restrictions designed to prevent foreign spying using these systems. Specifically, Pirelli, which is partially owned by the Chinese firm Sinochem, could have its tires pulled from US shelves due to the restrictions that state that foreign governments can’t have access to this data.

Michelin

Michelin entered the market in 1888 as a bike tire manufacturer. The company was founded by brothers André and Édouard Michelin after purchasing a failing rubber factory. Michelin quickly expanded operations alongside a steady stream of innovative products.

Impressively, Michelin currently holds +10,200 patents, demonstrating its commitment to innovation. Some of its greatest developments include an auto-regenerating tread that provides 20% longer life and reduced fuel consumption by 10%.

Michelin is a publicly traded company with shares available to investors via the Euronext Paris exchange under the ticker ML. It has strong institutional backing, including major investors like BlackRock (BLK +0.02%), Vanguard, Amundi, and more.

Michelin AI Smart Tires | Conclusion

Michelin seeks to provide a tire that can perfectly match today’s high-tech vehicles. Its latest venture is sure to spur excitement and find its way into many popular car brands. As such, you can expect demand for smart tires to increase alongside rising electric car production rates, furthering Michelin’s market penetration and driving future innovations.

What do you think about Michelin’s AI-powered smart tires? Are they worth the benefits, or another gimmick?

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