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

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

miamiherald.com

31 pointsrntn64 comments

Looks like an astroturf campaign, with essentially the same story popping up around the country.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39159783

Yep, the couple quoted at the start of the article "started noticing wear on the tires" at 5k. And then the 7k quote is also from them - note that it doesn't say they actually had to replace at 7k.

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

They do wear faster on EVs but sub 10k miles is definitely not typical. This article is definitely written to grab attention with that 7k figure in the headline and then immediately starts walking that back.

Sure, clickbaiting is just the world we live in. On the other hand, dismissing this as astroturfing is also a bit un-nuanced.

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.

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.

Thats my point, you created an example to match your narrative. Same if you were to compare your car against a Ford F-150, its not a like for like comparison.

Rav 4 - Model Y is a good comparison to capture the extremes. Lexus Rx 350 is 4200lbs for their base trims.

People aren't picking between a Ford F-150 or a Tesla where I live, they pick between a normal ICE 5-seater or a Tesla. It's not cherry-picked, it is me-picked, a sample of 1 but a sample nonetheless. You OTOH have fabricated a choice that makes it seem reasonable. A truck is a work vehicle, a Tesla is personal transportation. The cyber truck is the like-for-like with a F-150, or at least it is designed to be.

Sorry you are, I am the one providing real world examples, you are the one saying they weight 40% more. Perhaps there is an equivalent car in your market where you could say its a like for like comparison and it is indeed 40% more but from what I can tell its usually around 20-25%.

Toyota Camry, 3300lbs. Model 3, 4000lbs. 20%

If you want to provide a like for like example go for it. But it has to be a like for like, not a Toyota Yaris hatchback vs a Model Y.

Not sure why you are clarifying what a like for like comparison is. I am making the point that you have a cherry picked 40% example, without backing up the models and I am giving you like for like comparisons where its 20%.

So many edits. Tell us what your car is then? You keep picking different cars.

Model x 5400lbs, BMW x5 4800lbs. 12%

When you cherrypick your comparison options, you can come up with some crazy statistics. What vehicle do you drive, and would you honestly compare it with a Model X (a large SUV)?

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.

Glad to see at least one other person agreeing, I got the doom and gloomer downvotes.

I think it may simply be a US vs European thing, it really surprises me the modern ICE cars are so heavy. I guess it's because of SUVization.

Where did you get 40%? The EV version of my car (Ford Focus) is 10-20% more than a typical Ford Focus (depending on trim).

I've been seeing a lot of anti-electric stories recently, even here. A lot about how Hertz has been selling their electric cars (mostly unrelated to them being electric, but because they see a lot of scrapes and scrapes are costlier for them to fix on the electrics they have), about how the market is cooling down, etc.

Seems like some interests are threatened by the prevalence of electric cars.

You can't engine-brake with an electric engine (with a combustion car, downshifting will force your car to be slower when going downhill, basically) so in mountain regions with ups and downs there's way more braking leading to massively increased tyre wear.

You clearly haven’t owned or driven one. Most have a configurable setting for regenerative braking, where the rotation of the wheels turns the motors to put energy back into the battery, and this has a very similar effect on speed. Less flexible, perhaps, than engine braking, as most EVs have a single forward gear, but I’ve now driven 86,000 miles in mine and am still on the factory discs and pads.

Regenerative or not, while braking you are still inflicting the whole weight of your car onto the tyre threads.

First, you can: many electrics have a regenerative braking mode that you can engage that will provide some amount of "engine braking"-equivalent slowing down. And on some of them you can select how much slowing is applied. It's very similar to manually selecting a gear.

Second, huh? How does engine braking reduce tire wear at the same speeds? Brakes do not contact the tire. It reduces brake wear...

Gentle braking reduces tire wear but that's possible with either mode.

Absolutely not the same thing.

> Brakes do not contact the tire. It reduces brake wear...

When braking you are basically limiting the tyre's rotation leveraging the tyre's stickiness to slow you down, and ultimately wearing it down. This is why where there is no abrasive surface under your car, i.e. snow, stopping down is harder. Or just accelerate to 100Kmh and then stomp on your brakes, then notice how they are all worn out where they contact the ground.

Engine braking does the same thing. It just applies resistance by using the engine instead of by using the brakes. Whether the slowing force is transmitted by the axle or the brakes is irrelevant to tire wear.

What? Tires are the way cars touch the road. If you're slowing down from engine breaking or from friction breaking, the force between the tires and the road will be the same. It's not like engine breaking has some alternative connection to the road.

And that says nothing about the fact that EVs use regenerative breaking, where the motors turn that kinetic energy into electricity to charge the battery, slowing things down with the friction breaks.

Can you please explain the mechanics of this? Engine braking, ignoring a semi jake brake style, is using the weight of the engine to slow the vehicle down. The mechanics of an EV using regen in my head seems pretty similar. You are generating electricity which is creating resistance, similar to how turning the engine without using petrol is creating resistance.

There's no difference in mechanics, the resistance on the wheel's axle is similar, therefore tire wear is similar. The GP doesn't seem very informed.

You don't seem very informed to me. Any kind of deceleration will exert some wear on the tyres.

While engine braking it is not about the weight of the engine used to slow the vehicle down, but rather forcing the wheels directly connected to the engine to a fixed speed. When you clamp your brake, you are trusting the tyre's stickiness to slow the car down, pushing them into an abrasive surface, ultimately wearing them down.

Ever wondered why on a slippery surface the engine brake works while braking don't?

I don't see where you disagree. Indeed, any kind of deceleration exerts wear on the tyres. It doesn't matter if the deceleration is because of an electric motor or an ICE, the wear is the same for the same deceleration.

Then we are in agreement your original comment is wrong?

You seem pretty confused on the physics/mechanics of it. On a gas engine there is a vacuum created when you release the accelerator which requires force to continue to turn the engine via the drive shaft. The how is not whats causing you to skid its the amount of force. The force from a brake or the engine does not matter. I know there are conspiracy theorists online that suggest somehow its different but its really just the amount of force. Engine braking is a lot lower force than a hydraulic brake.

It all comes down to the friction between the tire and the road surface.

Isn’t regenerative braking similar?

Engine braking uses the tyres to slow down. Every motion a car does uses the tyres, no matter how it's done mechanically.

And as other comments mentioned, there's regenerative braking on EVs which, in tyres' mechanical terms, behave very similarly to engine braking.

Absolutely not the same.

It's definitely very much the same from the tyres perspective, regenerative braking happens on the axle which slows the tyre rotation and the tyres friction grips pavement to slow down the mass. Engine braking is the exact same: slowing the axle through the engine, the effects on the tyres is the exact same.

Let me know what's different in your mind and we can have a conversation, you're just wrong.

Based on the quotes near the end of the article I’d guess it was a tire retailer’s PR department. Either that or the oil lobby, naturally

Glad to see more awareness of this type of thing

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.

I think they were Michelin all seasons. Specifically to Teslas they also have a ton of camber on their Model X for handling and that makes the problem worse.

Things might have improved now because tire manufacturers now have dedicated EV tires, but there will be trade offs because they need crazy low rolling resistance and not be too noisy.

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.

Seems like ev are winning. Entrenched car lobby starts to feel the pressure.

Aren't all "car lobby" companies heavily invested in EVs?

for VW they still promote gas powered extensivly and try to avoid the end of the gas powered car. They even started to "break" some of the promises they made to the previous administration.

But they aren't as profitable as a gas guzzling SUV.

I do understand why EVs can wear tires faster than gas cars. Because of the low end torque, it is easy (even in the Nissan Leaf I drive) to chirp the tires at the light. However, if you drive moderately (and it is a choice), there is no reason your tires will wear unduly fast. Says someone on their second set of tires after 51k miles.

I live in Florida and I’m in my third Tesla now. I have not seen unusually fast wear on the tires, but I don’t drive particularly aggressively, and I pay very close attention to tire maintenance. The vehicle has a TPMS and I am meticulous about keeping the tire pressure at the manufacturers recommendation. I noticed early on that the tire wears extremely fast if the pressure is too low or too high. Tire maintenance is easier than ever, as Wawa has free tire inflators and a battery powered auto tire inflator cost less than $100.

Another nitpick about the tires is that the high air pressure (42 PSI in my Model X) means that the tires are under a lot of stress and even minor impacts with the sidewall can burst the tires.

So my bottom line recommendation is that you will get normal wear on your tires if you drive normally rather than aggressively, and if you keep your tires will maintained.

I'd love to see a real analysis instead of anecdotes, and particularly one that separates Tesla vs. others. My Tesla owning friends all complain about this; none of my Nissan/Ford/VW owning friends do. I suspect that BMW/Mercedes/Porsche EVs tend more toward the Tesla end, because it's mostly about acceleration and people with lead feet, but I'd like to see some hard evidence.

If you drive like a maniac then you can eat up your tires way faster than in an ICE vehicle. It is not the norm though from what I understand.

Is it all the folks using ludicrous mode?

My thoughts exactly. My tires have lasted way longer - and I drive about the same as I would in a gas-powered car. If you're tapping all your acceleration, your eMPG is lower, and your tires will naturally wear out quickly. It's not some weird, unexplainable thing, as this article suggests.

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.

Depending on the model, it's a ~400-500hp car. Most are AWD. They're heavy-ish. People drive them hard because it's fun. All things that accelerate tire wear.

Go hoon around in an RS3 and tell me how long your tires last. This is silly.

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.

They’re nowhere near the wear markers?

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.

Every 30,000km seems really often to become completely worn

If they’re reasonably soft semi-performance tyres the figure doesn’t seem surprising

Yes absolutely, i buy performance tyres all the time. Maybe simple ones will last a lot longer but i want my ass to be safer driving in the mountains by nighttime.

That seems incredibly fast, tires should last a lot longer than that.

That'll depend enormously on how you drive.

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

Depends on how grippy the tires are and how you drive

n=1 but my EV has gone 13,000 miles and the tyres are just fine still.

Omg this is nonsense. Source: EV owner since 2018

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