Most new vehicles now come fitted with some type of tyre pressure monitoring system, and legislation calling for the compulsory fitment of such units is not too far off in some parts of the world. However merely detecting changes in tyre pressure could easily be viewed as a half measure – why not also correct the pressure?

The technology involved in the automatic sensing and re-inflation of tyres with insufficient pressure is not new. Military vehicles have employed systems doing exactly that for years, HGVs are often fitted with this type of technology and Pirelli designed a re-inflation unit for motorcyclists in 2004. But as yet automatic re-inflation systems have not found a place on mainstream passenger car equipment lists. Efforts earlier in the decade that appeared to promise the imminent arrival of re-inflation technology for passenger cars, such as Michelin’s TIPM (Tire Intelligent Pressure Management) system – originally marked down for a 2005 release – turned out to be optimistic thinking. Following Michelin’s ever-deeper involvement with its EnTire Solutions joint venture, founded in 2003, very little has been heard about its once vaunted TIPM system.