RoboTire, robotic tire changing

The future of tire changing coming to a shop near you? 

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/ai-powered-robotire-change-tires-twice-fast-human.amp

Colors are great, but I don't think that's putting the F1/Nascar pit crews out of a job quite yet!

(The title made me think it was dismounting and mounting the tires on the wheels, which is far more skilled and dangerous, and I expect much harder to program a robot.)

The last few assembly plants I was in all had automated tire to wheel mounting and some had wheel to vehicle automated. That was fifteen years ago, so the tech to do it certainly exists.

BoulderG said:

Colors are great, but I don't think that's putting the F1/Nascar pit crews out of a job quite yet!

(The title made me think it was dismounting and mounting the tires on the wheels, which is far more skilled and dangerous, and I expect much harder to program a robot.)

Automated tire mounting machines exist and have existed for quite a while.

I used a semiautomatic "leverless" one, basically once you set the rim width (height on machine) all you did was push a button to break the bead, a button to run the dismounting/mounting arm.  Would be fairly simple to make completely automated at that point.

I think the tire machine and balancer ran $37k.  The fully automated one was enough more that it didn't make sense to buy it, but I would not be surprised if places like Tire Rack or tire-specific shops didn't have them.

And man, watching that machine work on like 305/25-20 run flats was breathtaking.  Like watching a predator eviscerate a fresh kill.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

It's pretty easy to determine when the break even point is, oftentimes it's in the 4-7 year range to go automated, and that doesn't even include the aspect of it attracted a better customer base.