This presentation provides a brief review on the developments of finite element techniques for tire mechanics covering the last two decades. Major focus is laid onto the developments on the algorithmic concepts of the method itself to tackle the specific challenges of tire mechanics in an efficient and robust manner. After a brief recap of the ALE-based relative kinematics approach, which provided the basis for nowadays numerical approaches, the major developments on the algorithmic scale with regard to the treatment of the contact conditions and the history of inelastic internal variables etc. are provided. Finally, an outlook will be given on the future duties in computational tire mechanics.