> Tires on a modern electric car will wear down much slower than in a car with a traditional internal combustion engine. This is due to good traction control. The driver assist systems reduce slipping by utilizing the electric motor's rapid power adjustment. This system is much quicker than in ICE vehicles, where it is based on braking and limiting engine RPM, Liukkula says.
I dunno if anyone's done a good scientific study on this.
This was, in my experience, not true. Ask most Tesla owners as well.
The heavier car + much better acceleration created more tire wear than any improvements to traction control from faster power response (though I'm not sure intrinsically why that would reduce wear - ICE cars can apply brakes to a slipping tire just as well as an EV, and instant torque doesn't feel like it would do anything positive for tire wear).
Fitting lower rolling resistance tires on ICE cars would provide any of the same benefits that EVs receive.
Part of the issue is that modern run-flat tires have stupidly low lifespans, like 20K miles. I have a Tesla and opted for non-run-flats with my latest change and I don't think my tires wear any faster than other cars I've had.
> This was, in my experience, not true. Ask most Tesla owners as well.
I suspect "ludicrous mode" will be less likely in semis. Truckers have a pretty good incentive to maximize cost savings; they don't need crazy acceleration like a high-end consumer sedan might want.
The tires my Tesla came with lasted only about 20,000 miles. I replaced them with better tires and those are not even close to wearing out after 30,000 additional miles.
Sure, it helps. However not only are EVs heavier, but there's a significant incentive to use narrow tires (for the weight) to increase efficiency and range.
As a result, while not skidding, it's easy to accelerate, brake, or decelerate enough to scrub the tires hard enough to wear quickly.
It's pretty well known that Teslas are hard on tires. One benefit is I rarely use brakes instead of regenerative braking. Having AWD does seem to help on that front.
Spinning the tires will obviously accelerate wear, but I don't think that's the source of most of the tire wear we see in the wild. Spinning the tires isn't all that common, but tires still wear down.
In addition to this, people are aware of the existence of regenerative braking, and that it works better when decelerating less aggressively, so they do. Which puts less wear on the tires.
The tires cannot generate any longitudinal acceleration with zero slippage. This slippage is what causes wear. (As a driver, though you perceive there to be zero slippage without wheelspin or sliding the tires, there is slippage between the road and tire anytime the tire is exerting a longitudinal force on roadway.)
> Tires on a modern electric car will wear down much slower than in a car with a traditional internal combustion engine. This is due to good traction control. The driver assist systems reduce slipping by utilizing the electric motor's rapid power adjustment. This system is much quicker than in ICE vehicles, where it is based on braking and limiting engine RPM, Liukkula says.
I dunno if anyone's done a good scientific study on this.