From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
I knew it would be bad, but not this bad!
Electric car buyers should be aware of the “astronomical” costs required to regularly replace short-lived tyres, owners have warned.
Car lover Jim Bassett managed just 7,500 miles in his brand new Volkswagen ID.3 before being quoted more than £300 to replace the rear rubber.
The 80-year-old stumped up the cash after being told it was common practice for tyres on his rear-wheel model to degrade rapidly due to the weight of the vehicle .
Due to its heavy battery, the £35,000 hatchback weighs around 1,800kg – the same as a Jeep Wrangler 4×4.
Fellow ID.3 owners have taken to online forums to also complain of short tyre life, blaming degradation on the hefty weight and instant torque of the car.
Mr Bassett, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, said: “I couldn’t believe it when I was told they needed replacing.
“I’m quite old and have had cars all my life – I’ve never had to change tyres this early, it’s normally been at around 25,000 miles.
“It amazed me, as at 7,500 miles tyres are virtually new.
“The VW dealership expressed no surprise or concern that they needed replacing so soon, saying that ‘the car is rear-wheel drive and very heavy’.”
The strain on EV tyres comes as a result of both the extra weight and higher torque, the twisting power that launches a car from a standing start.
Road safety charity Tyresafe said: “All that power at any speed in a heavy vehicle means if the driver regularly accelerates hard, the tyres are put under tremendous strain, fighting to grip the road and not spin.”
Due to the greater acceleration speed, manufacturers advise drivers to be delicate on the throttle to prolong tyre life.
Volkswagen, which first launched the ID.3 in 2019, said that driver performance is the key factor impacting tyre wear.
A spokesman said: “Tyre longevity is influenced by a wide range of factors, most importantly the way in which the vehicle is driven, for example, hard cornering, braking and acceleration can cause more wear than gentle driving.”
VW also said that “types of road surfaces, temperature, correct maintenance of tyre pressures; care when parking; and the amount of load the vehicle carries” all impact the level of degradation.
Tyre manufacturer Michelin has previously said that conventional tyres wear out around 20pc faster in an electric vehicle, while Goodyear said they can degrade as much as 50pc faster.
Last year, research by technology firm Epyx found that, on average, tyres fitted to EVs lasted 6,350 fewer miles than those on petrol or diesel cars. The first tyre change for electric cars takes place after an average of 17,985 miles, compared to 24,335 miles for petrol and diesel cars.
Tyre makers are continuing to develop bespoke EV rubber suited to the heavier vehicles, but they can come at a greater cost for drivers. Epyx found that the average tyre cost £207 for larger electric vehicles – £77 higher than the cost for larger petrol cars.
Max Torque at zero revs or max torque at 3500prm, now what do you think is most likely to rip the rubber off your tyres.
Only an idiot floors the accelerator when starting from full stop. Guaranteed to deliver much shorter tire life regardless of EV or ICV.
Besides, manufacturers are delivering vehicles today with massively more power, including ICVs, than just a couple of decades ago. When I got my last vehicle, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Dodge-Jeep-Ram dealer’s entire inventory of Dodge Durangos was equipped with 6.2L supercharged Hemi engines putting out 715 HP! As compared to the 1999 Durango I bought new with a 5.9L normally aspirated V-8 with all of 270 HP. Those 2024 Durangos are very likely to go through tires like shit thru a goose.
You don’t buy a vehicle with a Hellcat engine to save money.
You buy any vehicle because it fits your needs and fits your budget.
The point here was that ALL vehicles tend to have much more power than they did a couple decades ago. That is a function of what buyers want, and what designers can produce at a price that buyers will buy. There is absolutely nothing to do with EV or ICV.
How drivers drive their vehicles also has most of what it takes to lengthen or shorten tire life, even little econo boxes if they’re driven hard. Or EVs that are driven like baby carriages.
“You buy any vehicle because it fits your needs and fits your budget.”
It’s more wants than needs.
“The point here was that ALL vehicles tend to have much more power than they did a couple decades ago.”
That’s utter rubbish.
The only thing that vehicles have picked up in the last 2 decades is extra BLOAT!
On average 2020s vehicles are some 20-40% heavier than their equivalents of the 1990s.
Chapman was right here.
Add performance = reduce weight, just so their obese and lazy owners.
You want to see the spread of the obesity disease in western society. Look no further….eg. “47.3% of French adults are obese or overweight”… presse.inserm.fr
You appear to be either delusional, or misinformed regards actual facts. ICE engines have gotten smaller, lighter and more powerful with lower displacement and hence fuel burned by huge proportions over the past few decades. Likewise on the nonsense you are selling regards vehicle weights increasing since the 1990’s.
I have a 2002 Chevy Express 2500 Van, with a 5.7 liter (350 cu in) engine. It delivers around 255 HP max. Chevy does not make a 5.7 liter anymore, but the 2023 engines are either 5.3 or 6.2 liter V8’s. the 5.3L is 355 HP and the 6.2L is 420 HP.
Similarly, 3 bangers have increased power drastically. An old 4 cyl Toyota Camry produced maybe 133 HP and today it produces 206 HP.
Regards curb weight, my 2002 stretched Chevy Van weighs 6500 lbs empty. New ones of this same model, and dimensions weighs 5200 lbs. And that is for a work truck. Cars had already reduced curb weight by the early 2,000;s compared to older models. And Hondas and Toyotas with same models have almost identical curb weights for the 2023 model vs the 2000 models.
Honda Accord in 1990 was 3100 lbs and in 2000 was 3200 lbs and 2023 was also 3200 lbs. It’s actually gotten dimensionally larger more than the weight proportion.
Like my opening, you are either delusional or misinformed.
Jack rabbit acceleration is the major selling point for electrics, at least according to the EV advocates here.
Either you didn’t read the article, or chose to ignore it again, but acceleration was only one and not the largest reason for extra wear and tear.
“Only an idiot floors the accelerator when starting from full stop. Guaranteed to deliver much shorter tire life regardless of EV or ICV.”
Try renting a Nissan Versa or similar underpowered car, then get back to us on that statement after you floor it when the light turns green.
There is great pleasure in “Flooring It!” almost any time. But the price for enjoyment is not cheap no matter what car is it. My Son-in-law leased his Tesla solely for for the 0-60 foot time it can achieve, and I am sure a great many Tesla owners did the same. So much for “Saving The Planet” as this sucks electrons just like it sucks gasoline in an ICE.
Well, to be fair, the Tesla doesn’t exactly suck electrons, it just takes all the energy out of them and returns them to the battery at a lower energy state. Sorry for not being precise!
The point of the post was flooring a Versa does NOT come at a cost wrt the tires because it **has no acceleration**. The engine is woefully underpowered.
0 to 60 foot??
If “max torque” delivered to the wheels is the same at 3500 rpm as it is at zero revs (referring to electric motor speed), there won’t be any difference. But EV motors actually deliver maximum torque at zero-to-very low rpm and very much less torque at higher motor speeds.
I never got 6000 miles out of a tyre in my life, but that’s down to choice of car and driving style!
As regular car tyres have got generally wider and suitable for heavier loadings, the new tread depth has noticeably decreased. The makers would say it improves stability, reduces flex, etc. But I’m sure they don’t mind them reaching the wear indicator 30% sooner.
Do you drag race to the supermarket?
You’re doing something wrong.
I’d suggest he go metric.
I don’t get that. I am upset if the new tires on my new SUV need replacement in the first 60K km. I keep these for many years, and expect the first set to last at least 3 years (60-70K km or at least 40K miles). I then buy the best all weather tires available (Michelin on the Escape).
I don’t expect that the tires provided by the manufacturer will last the longest, but 10K km would be an absolute bust to me. The current SUV (Bronco) has factory Michelin, which are OK (currently 31K km), but no where as good as the all weather ones I will replace them with
I’m with you re Michelin – I’m a chauffeur in Australia, so naturally drive gently most of the time. Their “Primacy” range has given me outstanding longevity, in combination with good wet weather grip, and low noise. My current car is an Audi Q7, fitted with Primacy SUV 255/55R19 – they are tracking to last 140,000km/87,000mi. (I measure the tread depth every 10,000km)
The Q7 weighs considerably more than a VW ID.3.
Most NASCAR drivers don’t even get 100 miles on a tire.
Your comment is questionable to me, mentioning MILES and tYre in the same sentence.
American or UK/metric country of origin??
BTW, tell me where you can consistently drive so aggressively that you burn up even the softest most grippy TIRES in under 6000 miles??
Note, I just needed to replace the tires on my 1 ton diesel PU here in the US. They were goodyear and only the second set of tires. I was at 98,000 MILES on the truck with approximately 50,000 miles of that towing our 11,000 pound 5th wheel. Now this was almost all highway miles, but about 1/2 of that was in and around HOT climate of the desert southwest US. So heavy truck, hauling a 5 1/2 ton trailer, and 49,000 miles per set. Of course these were TRUCK tires, not “performance” tires, so there is that.
I would think that anyone driving an electric should be getting truck tires but since MOST electric drivers are buying them for show, and to show off, they want the performance tires.
BTW not mentioned is regenerative breaking that also places most of the strain of breaking on the drive tires. It makes sense that if you do not rotate your tires properly, the drive tires will cook off FAST especially if you drive aggressively.
The UK still uses imperial for a lot of things, including distances.
And most people mis-pronounce “kilometers”. The accent is on the first syllable, not the second.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/kilometer#google_vignette
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kilometer
UK – first
US – second
I would prefer the stress to fall on the meter, as in millimeter and centimeter, but it is whatever it is.
Millimeter is a first syllable accent, as is centimeter.
As for dictionaries… they like to put nukyuler as an alternate pronunciation for nuclear. No, just no.
“BTW, tell me where you can consistently drive so aggressively that you burn up even the softest most grippy TIRES in under 6000 miles??”
Come to northern Illinois. It seems no one is enforcing the law here. I haven’t seen a state trooper on I-90 in weeks and cars are going in excess of 90 mph consistently. Meanwhile, traffic deaths are up 24%.
That’s known as the Douchebag Reduction Program.
For Americans like me 1,800kg equals 3968 lbs.
At the beginning of the article EV tires last 7,500 miles.
then at the second from the last Paragraph EV tires last an average of 17,985 miles, …which is it ?
I regularly get 60,000-80,000 miles on tires in the US.
I believe the 20% or even 50% faster is incorrect though. All reports I have seen here indicate that 80,000 mile tires are being replaced at less than 20,000 mile intervals, clearly 75% faster than intended (and that’s with the Petrochemical derived synthetic rubber that already lasts four times longer than natural rubber). Tire manufacturers do offer warranties in tread mileage though (sometimes) so I wonder if that applies to EVs usage?
The last time I was still working, for years most of my clients were about 65 miles away, so my almost daily commute was around 130 miles. The car was a VW Golf GTI, so adequately powered for my needs and not extremely heavy. Tire life was normally 65,000 miles. This seemed normal to me compared to previously owned cars. Tires were definitely less expensive back then.
no warranties on those new tires?
Sure. Warranty honored unless placed on an EV.
Er…. wear and tear….
Warranties are for product failure, not for abuse.
Sure, but let’s say you don’t abuse your EV tires- what sort of warranty are they offering? The same as tires on an ICE vehicle?
Putting them on EV is the abuse 🙂
Maybe different in the UK, but warranties in the US are based on tread-wear and then prorated. If there is 10% average tread left when you must replace it, you will get a 10% discount on the manufacturer’s suggested retail price of a new tire. There are always tire ‘sales’ going on, so they will recommend one that has a 15% discount over the MSRP instead of using the warranty. The short of it the warranty is basically worthless unless the tire was defective.
Gives a whole new meaning to burning rubber
Add in insurance and the other taxes coming their way, they ain’t cheap
It does make you wonder why a large piece of injection-molded rubber costs £200. The raw materials are essentially hydrocarbons probably with a bit of carbon black, sulphur, and a few other minor ingredients. All fairly cheap.
Have you looked at the technology required for modern tires? Think about the number of blowouts (as opposed to just going flat) that used to occur back in the fifties and sixties.
Unheard of today.
The difference is in the construction.
Hmmm . . . only if you overlook the polyester, rayon, or nylon fiber plies as well as the “steel belt” plies used in modern tire construction. Then too, the carcass/sidewall plies are a different design & composition from the crown (tread) plies.
Look at your bill details the next time. I don’t know about the UK, but there is a HEFTY environmental charge on tires here across the pond.
Environmental/recycling fees for passenger vehicles in most US states run $1-$3 per tire.
(see https://www.utires.com/articles/tire-disposal-fee/ )
Placing that charge against the typical price of $150–200 per tire for a passenger car, I wouldn’t say that’s HEFTY.
It’s not a simple injection-mold, you also have to account for multiple layers of steel belt, that goes into the tread, and the other layers that provide sidewall strength. It’s a many step process to build up the body of the tire. The injection molding of the rubber is merely the final step of a long process.
RE: New Theory of Global Warming
Since the introduction of rubber tire in the early 1900’s, where has all the small particles of black rubber gone as the tires wear away? The answer is: anywhere and everywhere.
Many billions of pounds of black rubber particles and dust are absorbing sunlight and are heating up the earth.
Whoops, not quite zero emissions.
I remember reading years ago that there is a fungus that eats the rubber. If not for the fungus there would be piles of black on the sides of major roads.
Between UV in the sunlight and O2 in the atmosphere, the tire smut doesn’t last long.
It is more likely that black rubber particles floating in air act as soot, cooling rather than heating.
On the ground they reduce snow and ice albedo, possibly contributing to UHI effect.
The ‘free ride’ is coming to an end.
The flat rate cost of car tax for the 2024/25 financial year is £190. Hybrid cars get a small discount (£10) but if the vehicle had a list price which exceeded £40,000 when it was first sold then it is also liable for the ‘premium car tax’ fee, which adds £410 to the vehicle’s annual VED costs. For the first 5 years of the vehicle’s life.
Tyres just add to the misery they are going to feel as the taxes and charges bite.
To the promised land…
Speaking of which, it was a Goodyear when that song came out.
I’ll give that a Michelin star…..
The numbers in this report don’t make sense. What, are Brits especially lead-footed? Most new vehicles in the US are equipped with tires that generally get about 35-45 K miles before being worn out, not the 24K reported as the average in the UK.
Or maybe British driving has proportionally more stop-and-go conditions than in North America? Or maybe the roads in the UK are worse than in the US? I don’t know … but road conditions certainly affect tire life.
I doubt that vehicle weight makes much difference to tire wear. I’ve owned and driven vehicles with weights all over the place, from compact sedans to pickup trucks to full size SUVs, from 3,000 lb to 5,000 lb, and never saw any correlation between vehicle weight and tire life.
“British driving has proportionally more stop-and-go conditions”
Another way of putting that would be more potholes, ULEZ, LTN’s, 15 minute cities etc etc etc
The war against the motorist is way more intense here.
Oh no, better quality of life for people living in cities. More independence for people who can’t / won’t drive. Safer cities. Less cost for infrastructure. How scary. Everyone should suffer so I can parade around in my oversized emotional support vehicle.
And no music in your world. There could never be. No transport, no power, no er, nothing.
You must be a muslim.
Actually, it wants to be totally dependent fossil fuels for everything in its battery-chicken little life…
… like it already is.
And a 15 minute walk to anywhere. Just watch where you step.
No worry about carrying your groceries homes because it’s only a 5 minute walk before you’re mugged and your possessions stolen
LoserName lives in a 1 minute community. That’s how long it takes him to walk from his mother’s basement to the kitchen for a snack.
No, that’s how long it takes its mother to bring the food to it. !
What are car tires made from, Lusername?
Americans strongly prefer the concept of freedom, in all its forms including freedom to travel to where you want at your own pace in your own vehicle, and as a culture we strongly believe in individualism, which is why we’ve preserved most of our freedoms here for hundreds of years, while the rest of the world has had to endure dictatorships and oppression most of the last several hundred years. We also like privacy over being crammed like sardines into a smelly can underground.
Europeans and Asians, on the whole, apparently aren’t motivated by those concerns.
Other nations beside the USA also tend to prefer individualism over sardinism. It really depends upon the cultural traditions and expectations.
Trying to force fit a European or Asian mindset on Americans is simply not going to happen. Though advocates of big cities (and big city crime, congestion, high taxes, and over-crowdedness) have been trying to tell Americans we’re doing it all wrong for many decades now, to virtually no effect. If you want to live like bees in a hive, by all means, join the hive.
Those who don’t, won’t.
Could you edit your first sentence to say “Americans strongly prefer freedom.”?
Freedom and individualism:
Basically jail:
First picture, people getting to where they want to go.
Second picture, people getting to where the government tells them they are allowed to go.
He won’t understand.
Huh. I have several acres of water front property and a road that maybe sees a dozen cars travel it each weekday. I pity those who have chosen to live in either picture, but I understand why.
Too many people in both pictures. Fortunately, I have the freedom to choose something totally different.
Also, I’ve had commutes like the first picture. What’s missing from your infantile commentary is how the rest of your life can be. Even when I was commuting, I had what I consider a better quality of life than those in your 15-minute cities.
Why don’t you show the parking area just around the corner from that mall, Luser !!
Malls exist everywhere… How do you think those people get there.
And all those shops….. go behind them, you will find alleyways for deliveries by FOSSIL FUEL powered trucks.
Isn’t it amazing how for socialists, freedom for themselves always ends up enslaving everyone else.
I’ll take my oversized emotional support vehicle and you can have your overregulated emotional support city.
Imagine that, people being able to choose.
(Not sure how potholes contribute to better quality of life but if that’s what you like…)
“better quality of life”
Like that battery chicken coop you showed the other day. !
Tires are matched to the vehicle based partly on weight. A 3000 lb vehicle will generally have lighter tires than a 5000 lb vehicle.
Yes. All things being equal, physics fundamentals say that force is the product of mass and acceleration.
EVs because of their batteries are of greater mass, ABE, and their higher torque rates often result in greater acceleration.
Of course good engineering should account for these factors. Keep in mind, however, not that long ago, rear bumpers on Tesla EVs could fall off in heavy rain.
Is it possible that tyres manufactured in the UK have half the tread depth of tires manufactured in the US?
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
It only stands to reason since “S” is almost twice as deep in the alphabet as “K” 🤔
Translation: I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I’ll defend EVs even if I have to make a total fool of myself.
Duane, the science is the science, even if you don’t want to believe it.
Something that is not mentioned about tire longevity is the actual age of the tire. Most everyone assumes that tread wear is the best indicator of tire fitness when actually it is the age of the tire. Almost all tires are made with various compounds added to the rubber mixture for different qualities in use. Those various compounds can degrade quickly shortening the overall life.
This is especially true in the lawn & garden tires where the tire’s sidewalls provide the only suspension. As the rubber compounds age they become harder and brittle losing the elasticity that provides both suspension & traction. Since these tires are used mainly on soft surfaces, there is little friction to degrade the tread.
What it really sounds like is that the manufacturers of the EV’s are simply selecting the least expensive tire for the vehicle, for to them a tire is a tire. It is then up to the consumer to select a tire that gives better performance with the heavier load and higher torque to the wheels.
“actual age of the tire”
That’s hardly relevant if you are only getting 7,500 miles out of a tyre.
My ice car has had no tyre changes since 2018 and it’s done way more than a mere 7 1/2k
I have a 2001 Honda S2000 with 12,700 miles on it, original owner. i average ten years on a set of tires.
“What it really sounds like is that the manufacturers of the EV’s are simply selecting the least expensive tire for the vehicle”
Do you have any facts to support this conjecture, or you just came up with it on the fly?
I have a full sized ICV SUV and will probably get 65K miles on this set, since I got 70K on the last set. The car came with Continentals that barely made 25K. I put high mileage Michelins on it on the first change and they definitely were high mileage.
My wife’s car had high performance tires on it that made 20K. I replaced them with high mileage tires and they are still going at 40K, plus the car rides much better.
What really matters is the rubber composition. I don’t doubt the thesis of the article but they don’t say anything about what the actual tires are made of. If I put an average tire for the UK market on my car what should I expect? Since I got 2.5x’s the life on the Michelin vs the Continental over the same driving conditions, it matters.
“a full sized ICV SUV “
What does that mean? Can you get scaled down versions. like, say, 3/4 or even 1/2 size versions etc?
Tyre wear only became an issue with the advent of the electric powered car. That is a very solid fact.
“Can you get scaled down versions. like, say, 3/4 or even 1/2 size versions etc?”
Yes. They call them “crossover” SUVs. The Honda CRV, for instance, is about 1/2 the size of a Suburban or Expedition. A Volvo XC90 is about 3/4.
A Volvo XC60 Cross Country is about 1/2 and still drives instead of wallowing.
High mileage tyres generally contain more silicon compounds than ‘low’ mileage equivalents. The trade offs with high mileage tyres are a bit more road noise and a bit less grip (especially on wet roads). We all pick our own priorities.
Absolutely. I drive road miles for the most part and very conservatively. My next door neighbor drives a 911 and probably goes through a set of tires in 6 months. And his tires cost at least twice what I pay.
And you feel the road more with hard (high mileage) tires. One has to compromise between having comfort and better handling, and tread life.
You know those pit stops at NASCAR races where they run around? They’re not replacing the tires because the new ones look nice.
Higher performance means shorter tire life.
It’s easier to go through tires on EVs because they are quiet and just go.
Higher performance means… changing tyres… an awful lot, depending on the weather of course.
Drivers will get two sets of the hard tyre (marked white), three sets of the medium tyre (marked yellow), and eight sets of the soft tyre (marked red), as well as the green intermediate tyre and the blue full wets, should they be required.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/what-tyres-will-the-teams-and-drivers-have-for-the-2024-monaco-grand-prix.6XljI9p0yHXOccDGq1ryRo
The 80-year-old stumped up the cash after being told it was common practice for tyres on his rear-wheel model to degrade rapidly due to the weight of the vehicle .
When was the last time “the 80-year-old” checked the air pressure in his tyres? And isn’t it likely that VW has been in business long enough to spec tires appropriate to the weight and torque and expected use of the vehicle?
Is it possible that “the 80-year-old” has one or two much younger grandchildren that, on occasion, enjoy the high-torque performance of this EV?
When will we stop taking newspapers at their word that everything they write is well researched and the inciteful?
So don’t trust the newspapers. Simple to find corroborating information.
“According to companies such as Michelin, tires on electric vehicles wear out up to 20% faster than on internal combustion vehicles. Electric vehicle tires are specifically designed with optimized tread patterns, rubber compounds and sound-absorbing foam.Feb 5, 2024″
jtom. Thanks for your comment.
I don’t trust newspapers.
” … tires on electric vehicles wear out up to 20% faster than on internal combustion vehicles.”
Worn out at 7,500 miles is much more than “20% faster.”
Mr. broker: The site and many commenters consider ourselves “skeptics” because we don’t take newspapers, CliSci’s, or EV enthusiasts at their word. Maybe the 80 year old just made this up, and he’s posting comments under some other name, like “rovingbarker”. Maybe you should look into questions that interest you and then comment?
paul courtney …
My point is that the newspaper story was wrong. Unbelievably wrong. Horribly wrong. Irrationally wrong. I refuse to take this newspaper at its word.
Is it your contention that the newspaper story is factually true? That this man treated his car and tires as they should have been treated and maintained and they still wore out at 7,500 miles?
Mr. broker: Thank you for demonstrating the leftist device known as “moving the goalpost.” The article could be factually correct, I checked it out EXACTLY AS YOU DID, aka not at all. I noticed that the 80 year old was only one of a group that made the same complaint. To read you, it was one 80 year old. The article said something about how he maintained his car? (It didn’t-here’s the goalpost moving) I didn’t contend it was true, and I certainly said nothing about how the fellow maintains his car. It is YOU applying your bigotry regarding 80 year-olds, YOU assume he didn’t maintain it when the article says nothing. Now, if you admit the article says nothing on that subject, then you must wonder why I must now verify something that isn’t in the article.
You should take more care in replying. As I said, you have questions about the article, why is your first idea to display your ignorance rather than do a bit of looking?
Homewood is extremely anti-EV biased.
This article is filled with BS that does not apply to US EV owners and very likely exaggerated UK EV owner experiences, by using a worst case example
.
The 7500 mile tire replacement is total BS for EV owners. There may be exceptions caused by poor alignment, underinflation, or defective tires
The 50% faster tire wear is total BS
The cost of a new tire is not “astronomical”
The cost of an EV tire is no more than the cost of an ICE tire because the tire does not care how the vehicle is powered. It just has to be the same size. It does not have to be the same brand and model.
The faster wear of EV tires from extra weight is offset by slower wear of brake pads, especially with stop and go city driving. With regenerative braking, some hybrids and EVs can go up to 100,000 miles between brake services.
It seems to me that as global BEV and PHEV sales keep increasing, conservatives resort to more lying, exaggerations and myths to criticize all EVs.
I am very surprised Homewood did not imply batteries are only good for 10 years, a myth he repeated in his Conservative Woman column last Friday.
After 26.5 years of reading conservative climate and energy articles, this is the first year when I have noticed an increase of conservative myths used to refute the usual leftist myths.
This article is a continuation of that recent trend.
For the same amount of money as a compact 4000 lb. BEV, you could buy a big 4000 lb. ICE vehicle that wears out its tires at the same rate.
Yes, it is.
What an elitist
Sets of used tires, including base model rims, for the Tesla Cybertruck are going for over $3K on Ebay, not including shipping. The tires alone are about $400 each, not including balancing and installation.
From my perspective, buyers of these vehicles are long on money and short on brains.
The Bugatti Veyron tires cost $42,000 for a set of 4. $10,500 per tire 🤑
I guess I’m not going to buy a Bugatti Veyron.
Me neither
A mate of mine has one of those.
It is battery powered… and has remote control.
Scale about 1:24 iirc 😉
You can afford a BEV and the more expensive BEV insurance but can not afford to replace tires that may wear out 20% faster than an equivalent size ICE vehicle?
That makes no sense.
Tesla Model 3 from various years come equipped with 235/45R18, 235/40R19, 275/35R19, 235/35ZR20, and 275/30ZR20 tire sizes
An exact replacement would be about $200 in the US but you could spend $100 and get a cheaper brand. Even at $200 each the cost of two tires is not astronomical.
It seems to me that as global BEV and PHEV sales keep increasing, conservatives resort to more lying, exaggerations and myths to criticize all EVs.
Does it, really? They haven’t increased in Europe or the UK
It seems to me that I have the data
and you have the claptrap:
UK:
“The growth trend, consistent throughout the year, was entirely driven by fleet registrations, which surged by 18.5% to hit 81,207 units – representing over six in ten of all new cars registered in April. Conversely, private buyer uptake dipped by -17.7% to 50,458 units, while business registrations fell by -16.1% to 2,609.
Electrified vehicles continued to be the primary drivers of market expansion. Plug-in Hybrids (PHEVs) saw the strongest growth, rising by 22.1% to capture 7.8% of the market share, followed by Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), up 16.7% with a 13.1% share of demand.
Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) registrations experienced a more positive April, largely due to compelling fiscal incentives for businesses, with overall BEV uptake climbing by 10.7% and market share reaching 16.9%, a notable increase from the previous April’s 15.4%
UK new car registrations rise for 21st consecutive month in April 2024: SMMT – Motor Finance Online
EU:
“April 2024, battery-electric car (BEV) registrations rose by 14.8% to 108,552 units, with their market share holding steady at around 12%.
France and Belgium saw significant increases of 45.2% and 41.6%, respectively, while Germany. From January to April, a total of 441,992 new battery-electric cars were registered, marking a 6.4% increase from the previous year. remained stable (-0.2%).
Hybrid-electric cars also saw robust growth, with registrations up 33.1% in April. The largest markets for this segment, France (+48.1%), Spain (+38.5%), Germany (+25.9%), and Italy (+22.8%), all recorded double-digit increases, with registrations totaling 265,992 units. This pushed the hybrid-electric market share to 29.1%, up from 24.9% in April 2023.”
New car registrations: +13.7% in April 2024; battery electric 11.9% market share – ACEA – European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association
Yeah, it’s funny what government mandate induced fear will do for an unpopular product (EV) or to a proven safer product (ICE)
How long (mileage wise) do tires last on Your EV?
I don’t own and EV or ever anticipate owning an EV. That doesn’t prevent me from doing research on EVs. How long do the tires last on your adult tricycle?
I don’t have an adult tricycle. I too do research.
So, tell us, Have you stopped beating your wife…Yes…No?
Though I would like an adult tryke
The Polaris Slingshot is another nice 3 wheeler
One blog post on the cost of new EV tyres and now it’s a conservative myth? That’s quite a leap, innit? Even for you.
I’d love to know how RG knows that this is a left wing myth.
Of course, everything that goes against what RG wants to be true is just a myth, it’s a coin flip as to whether it’s a conservative or liberal myth with him.
The last two EV / energy articles at The Conservative Woman, one by Homewood, claimed BEVs were essentially worthless after 8 to 10 years because their battery warranty had expired. False.
The number of commenters here who are climate science Nutters is simply amazing. It seems almost like a crime here to admit that CO2 emissions cause global warming. And any alternative theory of global warming that does not include CO2 gets a hero’s welcome like a personal visit by Donald Trump.
Report that EV sales are growing, and the peanut gallery gets upset
Report that USCRN is increasing at +0.34 degrees C. per decade since 2005, above the average warming rate called catastrophic, and the peanut gallery goes berserk.
The “peanut gallery” was once used to refer to people — mostly Black people — who were sitting in the cheap seats in vaudeville theaters and would throw peanuts on stage if they didn’t like a performance rather than throwing tomatoes. (Yes, throwing foodstuff on stage was once a thing).
Except the hecklers here eat the peanuts and throw downvotes at me, like I care. I’d rather have some peanuts.
“I’d rather have some peanuts.”
Best place to find those, is between your ears.
Still pretending you can compare the trend of numbers with a range of 7C against those with a range of less than 2C.
As shown many times, there is no statistical difference between the global UAH trend and the USCRN trend… your ranting is meaningless.
Your lack of mathematical understanding is quite hilarious.. but totally expected. 🙂
Mr. 2000: You’re being too nice, Mr. Greene has only shells between the ears. I look forward to his first recognition that EV sales are not booming anymore. Not holding my breath. Here, he imagines himself so important that we are “heckling” him. Ego is big issue.
Stop whining.
Back in 2000 I bought a 1998 Dodge Durango that still jad good tread life remaining on the original tires. Those tires lasted me over 70,000 miles. I sold my Durango last year with just over 30,000 miles on the tires and significantly more than half the tread life remaining.
Tesla owners who talk about it often complain that their tires need changing at less than 20,000 miles.
This article is filled with BS
Then you should take it up with Joe Wright, since he’s the actual author of the article. Homewood simply shared it.
Mr. G: For some reason, MR. Greene thinks we need to know whatever he thinks.
I am stumped by the low mileage for tires. Except for the recall on some Firestone 500’s I had on my Jeep Cherokee I got over 30000 on every set of tires I’ve owned. The best was on my Dodge 1500 with hemi and they lasted for almost 100000 miles. What a great truck. Everyone should own a Ram 1500 hemi once in their life.
Stop acting normal…..
You must have driven where it rains a lot and the roads don’t get too hot. And drove conservatively.
See my comment above about 50K miles 1/2 towing on my Chevy 1 ton.
From the above article:
“The strain on EV tyres comes as a result of both the extra weight and higher torque, the twisting power that launches a car from a standing start.”
Not mentioned in that article, but sure to be an additional factor explaining the higher wear rate for tires on EVs is the fact that almost all EVs today uses “regenerative braking”.
“You can set your RBS to the maximum setting in order to store as much lost energy as possible, but you’ll probably feel a sensation of the car braking itself, which some people do not enjoy. If you don’t like how the braking feels, you can turn off the setting.
“In many electric cars, lifting your foot off the accelerator pedal feels like you’re firmly pushing the brake pedal. In order to adjust to this sensation, switch to a method called “one-pedal driving,” where you modify your right foot to slow down and speed up on the accelerator pedal, rather than switching between the accelerator and the brake . . .
“Overall, EVs can recapture between 15-30% of their energy, which equates to the same increase in range. (The low end is 10%, and the high end is 50%.)”
— https://4frontenergy.com/blog/what-is-regenerative-braking/
(my bold emphasis added)
So, without the ability to lift one’s foot off the accelerator and thereby coast on the car’s momentum (without braking), many EVs will suffer tire wear from the extra torque and friction put on the tires from regenerative breaking.
Per the above quoted extract, if one turns off the RBS (I don’t know if that’s even possible in all countries for all EV models), expect significant less range for a given battery charge level.
Nice and simple, but it’s far easier with a petrol guage….
One of the reasons why I chose a manual transmission, is that when I take my foot off the accelerator, I like to disengage the clutch and coast. With proper planning, the brake is only needed for getting rid of the last few mph.
There’s three modes in your Tesla: Creep, Roll, and Hold.
You can’t fully turn off regenerative braking, but Roll mode mimics those of a regular car where you NEED to press the brakes for the car to stop.
You can put it on “Track Mode” if you have a performance model, it’ll turn off Regen
i don’t know of any study comparing tire wear of Teslas with Creep mode versus Roll mode, so the tire wear effect of regen. braking is just theoretical.
“Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.”
Mr. So: To translate from the Greene- “I don’t know of any study” = “I have not looked at anything that might kill my EV buzz.”
Just a normal FWD hatchack. Had to replace tyres after 5 years (rubber starts cracking) with 40.000 km and they were still not worn out. I’m a sportive driver. Tyres were Michelin.
Replaced the tires on my Dodge Charger at 60,000+/- miles and those on my Durango at 70,000+/- miles.
I bought a Toyota Prius back in ’08 and learned about the heavy weight from
the battery. I went to a higher load range tire and it worked out OK. The Prius
literally paid for itself in the fuel savings .
The EV’s are not anything I’d want to buy, a hybrid maybe but no plug-ins for
me. My work truck has to run E load range tires because of a Cummins 5.9.
Great truck, just don’t take it off the road when it’s wet and muddy..
The 2008 Prius battery pack weighs 110 lbs.
That is not a “heavy weight”
The 2008 Prius curb weight is 2,932 lbs
That is not a heavy car
My neighbor is still happy with his 2005 Prius.
Hybrids and PHEVs are only OK as long as they continue to pump oil and sell the gasoline byproduct of petrochemical distillation
Hybrids are essentially a PETROL or DIESEL powered car.
Ahh, there you go again – bad-mouthing EV’s….(yes, sarc)
““I’m quite old and have had cars all my life – I’ve never had to change tyres this early, it’s normally been at around 25,000 miles.”
Dude’s memory is going. I started driving in 1962. At that time if you got more than a year out of a set of tires, you did a happy dance for them. It was only after the radial revolution of he 1970s that high mileage radial tires became common.
“Volkswagen, which first launched the ID.3 in 2019, said that driver performance is the key factor impacting tyre wear.”
Blame the victim, that’s the ticket. I think the technical term for that type of behavior in the King’s English is wanker.
I have noticed that one big factor in tire wear is the sidewall profile. I didn’t think when I bought my last car, and it has 40 ratio profile tires. I’m lucky to get 5,000 miles on them. My last car had 60 profile tires and I would get about 30,000 miles. I drove both cars the same way.
I got 35K out of tires on my Sorento.
I got about 50,000 miles on a set of tires on my Chevy Chevette. They were Pirellil’s, I think. I finally got rid of them because of their age. The tread was still fine. The sidewalls had become so stiff that the car road very stiffly. Getting a new set of shocks did little for the ride, but the new tires made the ride much softer.
Not stated in the article is that rubber microparticles from car tires is actually a significant pollution issue.
Microsoft Copilot with GPT-4 tells me …
The 2021 Volkswagen ID.3 offers several tire size options. Here are the available tire sizes for the ID.3:
Shopping online at US tire dealer Discount Tire for a Michelin Pilot Sport 4S (215 /45 R20 95Y XL BSW, the most expensive of the above) with a 30,000 mile warranty, I found that they cost $431 each installed. The least expensive Pirelli is $395 installed.
In any case, needing replacement at 7,000 miles indicates a problem with the rear alignment (assuming independent rear suspension), routine tire pressure checks or driving like I did when I was 16 years old.
Discount Tire will check tire pressure and wear for free as often as you are willing to stop in.
EV tires are optimized for mileage because the “gas” tank only holds a gallon or two worth of energy.
Think of a bicycle. Narrow high pressure tire coast forever. Wide low pressure tire you must pedal even downhill.
The narrow high pressure tires will wear faster than the wide low pressure tires.
My Audi Q7 weighs 2240kg, yet my Michelin Primacy SUV 255/55R19 tyres are tracking to last 140,000km/87000mi. (I carefully measure the tread depth every 10,000km)
Traipsing the forums, you’ll see that EV owners who choose their tyres wisely, and drive sensibly, get very good mileage. (I’m actually highly anti-EV, but I’m now confident that if I did have to get one, I’d be able to manage the tyre wear issue)
This is just like the wind turbines, everyone thinks they are saving the planet but the hubris of this thinking is staggering. The extra weight of the vehicle is a major factor in the tyre wear and where does all that discarded rubber and synthetic materials go? Yes into the waterways and into the soil.
There are studies that point to wind turbines doing a lot of damage to nature but we can’t mention that because of the “greater good”.
Just for the record I drive a Suzuki Vitara ICE, it’s light and quiet economical with tyres lasting about 18,000 miles.
18,000 miles is very poor performance for tires on an ICE car. You should be getting at least 35,000, and probably more like 50,000 miles. I used to get 50,000 miles on a set of Pirelli Scorpions on a BMW X3.
In other words, EVs cost more than ICEVs in every category. iSee Cars survey also showed EVs cost 64% more for every 1000 mis. driven since they’re driven less than their gas counter parts. In addition, their average price is $5000 more, and the newer semi-proven technology on them is more prone to unreliability, which is also a factor in low resale values. Yet governments want to ram them down consumers’ throats because they” help save the planet, except consumers are wise enough to recognize a con-job when they see one. That’s the reason EVs sales are experiencing steady declines during the past few years.
“EVs sales are experiencing steady declines during the past few years”
Slowing of the growth is not a decline.
EV sales are experiencing slowing down of the growth.
Part of the answer is in how hybrids are counted.
And synthetic rubber takes about 5 gallons of oil to make one tire.
“instant torque of the car”
and
“The strain on EV tyres comes as a result of both the extra weight and higher torque”
Can’t get away from The Other Side of the Story. I don’t want an EV myself, but anyone who talks about zero-to-sixty times once in a while should know EVs are awesome at fast acceleration.
Clearly we need to scrap oxygenated carbon taxing for pneumatic tyre taxing-
Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs – CBS News
That’ll fix the hooning and virtue signalling plus the potholes.
Something is wrong here. 1,800kg is 3,968 pounds (US). I have a 2013 Avalon Hybrid with a curb weight of 3,594 lbs (1,630kg). I bought it used at 55,000 miles with what I believe were original tires (they were factory OEM standard). I replaced all four at 78,000 miles with the identical OEM brand/model and have driven 33,000 miles on the new set and as of last rotation check (last week) I have plenty of life left on all four.
If tires are properly sized for the vehicle weight, driven moderately on decent roads, and wheel alignment is verified at the specified intervals, I see no reason EV owners shouldn’t get 40-50 K miles out of a quality set.
The article claims the EV in question is “rear wheel drive”; Edmunds lists the ID.4 as coming in both single and dual-motor configurations. If the dual-motor configuration works like Tesla’s that means it is effectively an all-wheel drive with the front/back motors synchronized electronically rather than a mechanical transfer case used on internal combustion 4WD/AWD vehicles. All cars have a differential axle to allow the left and right powered wheels to turn at different speeds as the car turns, as with a solid axle the outside wheel would be turning faster than the inside one and that stress would be taken out on the tires. The differential also compensates for slightly different tire diameters, which you get if you replace just one tire of the driving pair.
The same issue arises in 4WD/AWD vehicles between the front and back axles. In older part-time 4WD vehicles 4WD is only engaged off-road where the natural slip in the tire-to-surface contact absorbs any mismatch in front/back wheel speeds. In AWD vehicles, either there is a differential in the transfer case (which imposes additional mechanical losses and hence increases fuel consumption), or the owner’s manual will warn you you must replace all four tires with a matched set at the same time. A co-worker with an AWD Dodge Challenger ran into this with ZR-rated tires — ouch! The issue is discussed briefly here.
So what might be going on in this case is the electronic synchronization is not allowing any front/rear speed disparity and consequently causing excessive wear. If you kick the process off with frequent quick starts, I can understand how tire life could end up unreasonably short.
This is not unique to EVs; it is a risk with any AWD vehicle.
“Tyre manufacturer Michelin has previously said that conventional tyres wear out around 20pc faster in an electric vehicle, while Goodyear said they can degrade as much as 50pc faster.”
What is this unit “pc?” Is that supposed to be “percent?” You know, there’s a symbol for that: “%.”
What the heck?