For those with EV are you noticing rapid tire replacement?
I go through a lot of tires with all the miles I drive. I go through so many that I have my own tire machines and I mount and balance my own tires. I got tired of the idiots at the tire shops screwing up. It also helps since I live a long distance from a tire shop and I can fix my own flats at home. I typically buy about 10-20 tires per year. I have 3 vehicles, 2 trucks, 7 trailers, 2 motorcycles, and farm equipment. Last count was about 70 tires on everything.
The article mentions that the reasons include extra weight but I suspect the largest contributor is the lightweight and soft compound tires that are installed to increase range. The OEM Continental tires on my Maverick were garbage. After 20K miles, I started getting rock punctures on the gravel roads. I had 5 flats between 20K and 30K when I switched tires. My observation was the OEM tires are a eco friendly tire. They are lightweight and thin tread and sidewalls. The replacement tires I bought weighed 33% more (10# per tire) and had stiffer sidewalls and thicker tread. These are currently at 42,000 miles on my maverick and no rock punctures. I will be changing them in the next month or so because I am wearing them down quickly. The manufactures are putting these eco friendly tires to squeeze out the highest EPA MPG and the same thing is likely happening on the EVs. The heavier tire I installed cost me about 2 MPG. I suspect a decent tire on a EV will cost 6-8% lower range.
I saw a clip of Elon Musk on Joe Rogan’s show.
Rogan was asking Musk why tires have not evolved as fast as the rest of vehicle stuff.
Musk just said tires are really complicated.
That’s interesting. I figured it was much easier than designing and building a car. Tires have been around a long time.
On a side note. I do know that you don’t want to buy cheap Chinese trailer tires. These are known as China Bombs in the RV market. They just spontaneously blow up. Definitely don’t buy them for a travel trailer as when they blow up they can do thousands in damage to your RV. The only Chinese trailer tire I will buy is Carslie brand. Everything else stay away from. I had a set of China Bombs on a horse trailer. It had very little miles on it and they were only 2 years old. Two of the tires just blew apart while sitting in the field. If at all possible, run a LT truck tire on your trailer and avoid the crappy trailer tires all together.
I remember reading a story that they HAVE figured tires out but the major companies need to keep the status quo in order to make a profit. But it’s like any other car component, do you want reliability or fun? The softer the compound, the less life you get out of it…it’s the same for mountain bike tires.
As far as Tesla goes, my guess is the guys getting 7,000 miles are having a lot of fun over those 7,000 miles.
My Winnebago came with Goodyear Endurance, one of the better trailer tires you can get. The spare was a China Bomb and literally blew on rack on the back bumper. I replaced it with another Goodyear.
Edit: I remember sharing pics and complaining about China Bombs on Facebook and the post got deleted because it was insensitive to RVers in China. Is that actually a thing?
30k on mine,no issues. I asked about brakes recently andcthe tire shop says they’re good, but the downside is when they do need work, I’ll have to drive to the Tesla shop.
When we were looking for cars for my son, for shits and giggles we looked at a classic truck (I think 71 chevy), and it had a button on steering wheel. I asked the guy what it was for, it was a “burnout button”. My son even admitted he would not be able to resist the temptation to use it daily. He said “Ya, I can’t have that”.
Nice. That was line locks. It is a hydraulic valve in the front brakes. You apply the brakes then set the lock the release the brakes. This will hold full pressure on the front brakes and allow you to do burnouts. This is what the race cars use to do their burnouts. They are cheap and fun. They do cause premature replacement of tires.