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New tires every 7k miles? Electric cars save gas; tire wear shocks some drivers

miamiherald.com

21–30 of 66 posts

Re: New tires every 7k miles? Electric cars save gas; tire wear shocks some drivers

#22
post #6

Looks like an astroturf campaign, with essentially the same story popping up around the country. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39159783

I would not be surprised if tires wear faster on a vehicle that weighs ~40% more. Another thing to consider is road damage, which is famously proportional to the weight to the power of four. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

No, EVs do not damage roads. Its not famously proportional, there is a cut off and consumer vehicles, including EVs, do not damage roadways. Large semi trucks do.

Not sure how you calculate 40% but that sounds wildly off, unless you are cherry picking and comparing a Rav 4 to that wildly heavy Hummer.

Lets take a real comparison though, Model Y at the top end is 4400lbs, a Rav4 at the top end is 3600lbs. Thats a 22% increase, heavier yes but not 40%.

Edit: Here is one source to show why EVs are not tearing up the road. https://twitter.com/ajisuzu1/status/1681123111364620294?s=46

My TLDR is there is essentially a cutoff where the weight matters. Going from 3800lbs to 4400lbs is not whats causing damage, its the 60,000lb loaded semi (and I think 80k is actually the max weight cutoff.

Re: New tires every 7k miles? Electric cars save gas; tire wear shocks some drivers

#23
post #6

Looks like an astroturf campaign, with essentially the same story popping up around the country. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39159783

I would not be surprised if tires wear faster on a vehicle that weighs ~40% more. Another thing to consider is road damage, which is famously proportional to the weight to the power of four. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

A Tesla Model 3 is 0-15% heavier than a BMW 3 Series. A Ford Lightning is 10-20% heavier than a gasoline SuperCrew. EV's are not 40% heavier.

Re: New tires every 7k miles? Electric cars save gas; tire wear shocks some drivers

#24
I own a Tesla Model 3 Performance. I run non-EV specific tires, and I burn through them. Some claim weight is the issue, but at roughly 4,000 lbs the Model 3 isn't significantly heavier than at least some of its ICE competitors (to pick one of the worst offenders, the AWD Charger is heavier). I'm pretty confident the real cause is the power, power delivery, and my driving habits. Abusing sticky tires has always been expensive, it hasn't always been so easy to do.

Re: New tires every 7k miles? Electric cars save gas; tire wear shocks some drivers

#25

I can confirm faster wear but not every 7k miles. I've worked for a tire OEM before and we've been tracking tire usage on Teslas for a while. It's due to the combination of higher loads and torque

What do they put on Teslas where you are? In Europe they put SportContacts, those are performance tires and obviously wear down faster than your standard PremiumContact or equivalent.

Re: New tires every 7k miles? Electric cars save gas; tire wear shocks some drivers

#26
post #15

I’m currently at 30K and going strong on my Tesla Y factory tires.

Yep 33k here and I’ve had to replace all 4 but it’s been for hitting bad pot holes at speed, nails, etc.

7k is way too low, I would believe 25-30k for speedy drivers.

Re: New tires every 7k miles? Electric cars save gas; tire wear shocks some drivers

#27
post #9
post #3

I always had to change tyres on gas-powered cars after 30,000 km, they are completely worn by then. Currently through 13k on my Tesla and while there's some visible wear i'm sure they will last at least about 25k or maybe full 30k.

The expected lifetime of tires is 100k km, I thought.

Depends on how grippy the tires are and how you drive

Re: New tires every 7k miles? Electric cars save gas; tire wear shocks some drivers

#29
post #22
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not be surprised if tires wear faster on a vehicle that weighs ~40% more. Another thing to consider is road damage, which is famously proportional to the weight to the power of four. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

No, EVs do not damage roads. Its not famously proportional, there is a cut off and consumer vehicles, including EVs, do not damage roadways. Large semi trucks do. Not sure how you calculate 40% but that sounds wildly off, unless you are cherry picking and comparing a Rav 4 to that wildly heavy Hummer. Lets take a real comparison though, Model Y at the top end is 4400lbs, a Rav4 at the top end is 3600lbs. Thats a 22%…

The car I drive weighs about 1300 kg, the Tesla Model X is about 2400 kg. I was being conservative with 40%.

Edit: turns out my car weighs even less.

Edit2: asked Google for most common, seems Tesla Model S at around 2100 kg.

Re: New tires every 7k miles? Electric cars save gas; tire wear shocks some drivers

#30
Anecdotal but when I drive a crappy/always broken A3 I remember hearing a customer complain at the dealer that the sales rep should have worn them how heavy the A7 (maybe RS7) was because they were spending so much on tires.

I'm not an EV fan, but this problem has always existed for heavy cars, of which there have been many for decades.

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