Piles of Tesla owners stranded at charge stations abandons their EV's.

[tom66]

EV disadvantage:  I seem to have been enjoying instant torque a bit too much and have gone through 2mm of tread in 10 months, over the last ~10,000 miles.  The tyres are now due replacement.  Funny that my tyres will likely cost more per mile than the electricity to propel the car.

[AVGresponding]

Worth remembering that EV-specific tyres have less grip than ordinary ones.

[tom66]

Worth remembering that EV-specific tyres have less grip than ordinary ones.

My car runs on regular tyres, not eco or EV specific ones.  (Bridgestone Turanza.)  I'll probably swap the rear ones - with the most wear - for some Michelin CrossClimates and then the front for the same when they come due.

[nctnico]

EV disadvantage:  I seem to have been enjoying instant torque a bit too much and have gone through 2mm of tread in 10 months, over the last ~10,000 miles.  The tyres are now due replacement.  Funny that my tyres will likely cost more per mile than the electricity to propel the car.

Probably you got very cheap or low quality tyres. Such wear is not uncommon for cheap tyres in general. Stick to the A-brands but don't buy low friction or energy saving tyres. These are super noisy and don't offer good grip when it is wet (been there, done that).

[Miyuki]

Related:
Last summer, i drove behind a vintage car for some time. I don't remember what make and model, but i have to assume that it was a car without catalytic converter.
That car stunk to high heavens. And the smell lingered in my car for quite a while after it was gone.

Maybe in the past we were all desensitized to that smell, otherwise i have no idea how anyone was able to stand it.

I have several vintage vehicles and the smell is heavily dependent on what fuel you have and engine construction (one can differentiate vehicle by smell  )
When I rarely take a car to the city and get stuck in some traffic I feel a little guilty, because it is quite something when it idles.
Even the gas stations used to be way more stinkier, especially in summer. Some people like it.
But even modern diesel cars are stinky, not to mention after a few thousand km and a few years. And European cities are full of them.

[SeanB]

Yes the smell depends heavily on the vehicle type, and the condition of the engine. A Trabant is not exactly going to be a star emissions wise, simply because of the 2 stroke engine and full loss oil it used. Lada somewhat better, provided it has been serviced, which many were not exactly done to OEM level, admittedly poor as it was. Depends, though the biggest change was going to entirely unleaded fuel, which was a great change in making city air better, not dumping tons of soluble lead into the environment every year.

[Siwastaja]

I hate the smell of modern diesel engines the most. Those that most definitely pass on emission tests, while running a cheat program (which everyone has, not just VW who was made the scapegoat), or when brand new from the factory, in ideal conditions. Yet in real world, especially in cold weather, these stink like crap. With old diesels, at least you get the oily smell, not that weird, sweet smell of new diesels. I don't know which one is worse for your health. Probably both.

[AVGresponding]

Worth remembering that EV-specific tyres have less grip than ordinary ones.

My car runs on regular tyres, not eco or EV specific ones.  (Bridgestone Turanza.)  I'll probably swap the rear ones - with the most wear - for some Michelin CrossClimates and then the front for the same when they come due.

If you don't use EV-specific tyres, you'll be giving up some range to the higher rolling resistance of normal ones.

[tom66]

Worth remembering that EV-specific tyres have less grip than ordinary ones.

My car runs on regular tyres, not eco or EV specific ones.  (Bridgestone Turanza.)  I'll probably swap the rear ones - with the most wear - for some Michelin CrossClimates and then the front for the same when they come due.

If you don't use EV-specific tyres, you'll be giving up some range to the higher rolling resistance of normal ones.

The same is true for any car.  There is a tradeoff between grip and economy.  It looks like VW chose grip in this case, though it does vary between the models.  The base ID.3 (with the smaller 45kWh battery and smaller 148hp motor) does come with eco tyres.  Since I'm rarely running on electric fumes, I don't need to eek out the last few percent.

[nctnico]

In the end your life / safety is worth more compared to saving a few bucks.

[PlainName]

Surely one would drive within the capabilities of the vehicle. And saving a few bucks may mean the difference between driving and not driving (or, worse, using worn out 'sticky' tyres).

[Marco]

In the end your life / safety is worth more compared to saving a few bucks.

I doubt you can ignore vehicle weight for tire design, especially for aquaplaning.

In the end everything is a compromise.

[tom66]

Surely one would drive within the capabilities of the vehicle. And saving a few bucks may mean the difference between driving and not driving (or, worse, using worn out 'sticky' tyres).

Even the best driver in the world misjudges their ability from time to time.  If I recall correctly the statistic is something like 75% of drivers think they are above-average in their skill.  And some things are unpredictable, like someone skidding in front of you or an animal jumping out in front.  A good tyre gives you extra margin when things go wrong to stop, especially so in poor conditions.

That is why I always bought good tyres even for my shitty cars.

[nctnico]

Surely one would drive within the capabilities of the vehicle. And saving a few bucks may mean the difference between driving and not driving (or, worse, using worn out 'sticky' tyres).

Even the best driver in the world misjudges their ability from time to time.  If I recall correctly the statistic is something like 75% of drivers think they are above-average in their skill.  And some things are unpredictable, like someone skidding in front of you or an animal jumping out in front.  A good tyre gives you extra margin when things go wrong to stop, especially so in poor conditions.

That is why I always bought good tyres even for my shitty cars.

Amen to that. It is always the people who claim that they drive 'safely' who overlook the fact that while driving you have absolutely no control over the surroundings. Like somebody overlooking a red light and crossing right in front of you. Good tyres are the difference between 'pfew' and a crash. I change my tyres well before they are at the legal limit. As soon as the wear indicators start to get close to the main profile, I have the tyres replaced. The deeper the profile, the better the handling on wet roads.

I have been driving for decades and every now and then people still manage to amaze me by showing some kind of weird ass driving I have not seen before or a situation that hasn't occured to me before. There is always a new surprise behind the corner.

[Siwastaja]

Since I'm rarely running on electric fumes, I don't need to eek out the last few percent.

This is the second time I hear this rationalization from you (the previous one was about in context of Leaf's slightly stupid preheat mode losing 1-2% of battery capacity), but I think about it in the exact opposite way: any energy saving gives you more margin against running on "electric fumes". As long as it doesn't involve too big sacrifice on buy price or safety, even 1-2% gains on efficiency are important. At the end of the day, I have somewhere I need to go, and if I had better preheat logic adding 2% and better tires adding 3% then I would arrive at the destination with maybe SoC=20%, which I would be much more comfortable with than 15% because, like you, I hate running on electric fumes. (Actually, 15% is the lowest SoC I have ever ran to on my Leaf, so I have no idea what happens at 0%.)

[nctnico]

Just like cars on gasoline, there is always a bit more range left. Recently I rode along with someone in a Tesla. The car had 2% of range left at arrival and afterwards we needed to get to a near by Tesla supercharger as all the EV charging points where occopied. It all worked out well; especially since I got a free lunch out of it and left the meter running .

And again, there is no price tag to put on your safety. Efficient tyres have less grip so they are not better in any way. Having good grip means having friction and friction means material gets rubbed off which in turn costs energy. There is no silver bullet to get around that.

[PlainName]

A good tyre gives you extra margin when things go wrong to stop, especially so in poor conditions.

They should do, but only if you drive like you have shitty tyres on. Once you drive in a way that the good tyres let you, you've just moved the goalposts along a bit, but now when you are caught out it will be worse and you won't have had the practice in recovery.

Having said that, I use expensive grippy tyres on my bike because I'm a wuss, and teflon tyres on the car because I'm cheap

[tom66]

Since I'm rarely running on electric fumes, I don't need to eek out the last few percent.

This is the second time I hear this rationalization from you (the previous one was about in context of Leaf's slightly stupid preheat mode losing 1-2% of battery capacity), but I think about it in the exact opposite way: any energy saving gives you more margin against running on "electric fumes". As long as it doesn't involve too big sacrifice on buy price or safety, even 1-2% gains on efficiency are important. At the end of the day, I have somewhere I need to go, and if I had better preheat logic adding 2% and better tires adding 3% then I would arrive at the destination with maybe SoC=20%, which I would be much more comfortable with than 15% because, like you, I hate running on electric fumes. (Actually, 15% is the lowest SoC I have ever ran to on my Leaf, so I have no idea what happens at 0%.)

I get you, but I think like all things in engineering it has a balance. I would rather have a safer vehicle with better tyres and lose a bit more efficiency and consequentially have to charge for a minute longer on a road trip, than find myself with an airbag in my face having crashed into a ditch.  I had a BMW i3 as a loan car whilst my prior GTE was being fixed, and found it to be unnervingly unstable at higher speeds.  It has very skinny eco tyres as standard, which might be okay in summer, but would definitely feel dubious in wet weather.  The moose test isn't that impressive.  Tyre size 155/70R19 vs 215/50R19.

[PlainName]

As long as it doesn't involve too big sacrifice on buy price or safety, even 1-2% gains on efficiency are important. At the end of the day, I have somewhere I need to go, and if I had better preheat logic adding 2% and better tires adding 3% then I would arrive at the destination with maybe SoC=20%, which I would be much more comfortable with than 15% because

I try not to get to that point (not that I have an EV but in micromanaging things). Couple of anecdotes:

1. Used to pare anything not absolutely essential to DOS (yes, that far back) from memory. Ran all sorts of tools to achieve than and maximise the memory available to programs. Continued same with Windows, but now it's to ensure performance (games, see), so non-essential backgrounders pruned religiously. No desktop gadgets, monitors, nothing that might use a little of the CPU. Eventually wound up with a new build W7, so much memory I could have a RAM disk without running out of physical RAM, and enough CPU that I have 30(!) task tray items plus three gadgets, and some furniture enhancements. The relief of not having to worry about anything except using the PC was significant. And, even now, quite a few years later, as you can see from the task tray count I am still nicely relaxed about not giving a toss for slight performance efficiency.

2. Phone, small  battery. You can guess the rest - whatever might slow down battery use by even a fraction was worth killing off, and I had tools to keep it killed off. Even ran an app that would turn off WiFi if the phone was idle for 10 mins, or no connection was made for that time. Automatically turned it on again when the lock screen was unlocked, etc. Three different battery monitors let me track how it was doing. Then I got a phone with a decent batter, which the OS dealt with errant and wasteful apps, and it would last days without my needing to do anything special except use it. Again, that was such a relief.

If I had an EV, the very last thing I would want to be doing is micromanaging power saving. Just turn that temperature control down 1C to save a minuscule amount, and if 1C would do that why not 2C? Hell, just have no heating at all ! No thanks, I would want to just drive it and not get OCD about stuff I can never win at.

[nctnico]

A good tyre gives you extra margin when things go wrong to stop, especially so in poor conditions.

They should do, but only if you drive like you have shitty tyres on. Once you drive in a way that the good tyres let you, you've just moved the goalposts along a bit, but now when you are caught out it will be worse and you won't have had the practice in recovery.

This reasoning doesn't fly. It is not like you'll be driving twice as fast simply because there are speed limits. And there is something like common sense as well. About a year ago I found myself driving high up in the mountains in Switserland on a wet, windy mountain road while it was snowing a bit. No way I'm going to push the car to the limits in such a situation. In such situations I drive extra careful and let the locals I collect in the rear view mirror pass when possible.

[Psi]

IMHO the main advanced of good tyres are
 - Less road noise
 - If you push things further than you should, or you just misjudge a corner or the road surface then you're much less likely to lose control and go off the road.   I agree with nctnico, if you have good tyres you shouldn't be using them in the region where generic tyres would fail but where you're good tyres work totally fine.

Their benefits should be there for when you accidently push things too hard or misjudge something.
If you push them hard all the time then you're back in the same position where you run the risk of losing control if you accidently push them that tiny little bit more.

[PlainName]

A good tyre gives you extra margin when things go wrong to stop, especially so in poor conditions.

They should do, but only if you drive like you have shitty tyres on. Once you drive in a way that the good tyres let you, you've just moved the goalposts along a bit, but now when you are caught out it will be worse and you won't have had the practice in recovery.

This reasoning doesn't fly. It is not like you'll be driving twice as fast simply because there are speed limits. And there is something like common sense as well. About a year ago I found myself driving high up in the mountains in Switserland on a wet, windy mountain road while it was snowing a bit. No way I'm going to push the car to the limits in such a situation. In such situations I drive extra careful and let the locals I collect in the rear view mirror pass when possible.

"Risk compensation". You might not be driving twice as fast but you probably won't be leaving such a large gap to the car in front and stuff like that. There are lots of ways to exceed the capability of your motor other than flat out speed, you know

My Golf goes like it's glued to the road (despite the cheap tyres) whereas a Dacia I have to drive wallows all over the place and is generally not as capable. So I drive it in an appropriate fashion and don't have any more risk of catastrophe than I do in the Golf. If one isn't able to stay within the limits of the vehicle I question if they should be allowed on the road - not all vehicles are super safe and forgiving of driver faults, after all, but many people nevertheless manage to not run them off the road or smash into things.

[nctnico]

Again, it is not just about your own driver skills but the ability for the car to stay on the road if something unforeseen happens.

[Siwastaja]

If I had an EV, the very last thing I would want to be doing is micromanaging power saving.

Of course. It is the designer's job to "micromanage" such things.

[AVGresponding]

In the end your life / safety is worth more compared to saving a few bucks.

I doubt you can ignore vehicle weight for tire design, especially for aquaplaning.

In the end everything is a compromise.

Ah yes, thank you for reminding me of the other major EV consideration; weight.

So, if someone insists on using normal tyres on their EV, they need to choose a higher load index. Which means stiffer sidewalls, and more road noise. Back to square one... (almost)

Since I'm rarely running on electric fumes, I don't need to eek out the last few percent.

This is the second time I hear this rationalization from you (the previous one was about in context of Leaf's slightly stupid preheat mode losing 1-2% of battery capacity), but I think about it in the exact opposite way: any energy saving gives you more margin against running on "electric fumes". As long as it doesn't involve too big sacrifice on buy price or safety, even 1-2% gains on efficiency are important. At the end of the day, I have somewhere I need to go, and if I had better preheat logic adding 2% and better tires adding 3% then I would arrive at the destination with maybe SoC=20%, which I would be much more comfortable with than 15% because, like you, I hate running on electric fumes. (Actually, 15% is the lowest SoC I have ever ran to on my Leaf, so I have no idea what happens at 0%.)

I get you, but I think like all things in engineering it has a balance. I would rather have a safer vehicle with better tyres and lose a bit more efficiency and consequentially have to charge for a minute longer on a road trip, than find myself with an airbag in my face having crashed into a ditch.  I had a BMW i3 as a loan car whilst my prior GTE was being fixed, and found it to be unnervingly unstable at higher speeds.  It has very skinny eco tyres as standard, which might be okay in summer, but would definitely feel dubious in wet weather.  The moose test isn't that impressive.  Tyre size 155/70R19 vs 215/50R19.

Narrower tyres give better wet performance, as they are less prone to aquaplaning. High speed instability is far more likely due to the greater side area/height:wheelbase/track ratio.