I Investigated if EV Tires are Worth It

Three, two, one. After 40,000 miles, I'm about to get new rubber on my Tesla Model Y, aka Daddy Chill. And that's crazy soon. Normally with my gas cars, I can get around 50 to 60 K miles out of a single tire. But what about when your car is heavier, has instant torque and shreds through tires like candy? And this is an EV problem. If I wanted EV tires, it's actually more expensive than normal tires. Why? So I set out to find answers. I got in touch with the director at a famous tire company, Michelin. And then I did my own highly scientific testing. I got it, I got it. I drove these EV tires for almost 4,000 miles testing efficiency and performance to find out if they're truly worth the hype or just another upsell. But before I show the results, we need to understand what really sets EV tires apart from regular tires. Time for test number one, the hill. Because we're doing scientific testing, I got my handy dandy safety goggles and this white coat that's like really, really tight. This is called a shmedium, ladies and gentlemen. Oh yeah. This hill's insane. I don't understand how this is safe for kids. The EV tire on this side, the non-EV tire on this side. Three, two, one. It seems like the non-EV tire is actually faster than the EV tire. With my first tire replacement, I wanted something with more tread life. I wanted something more performance. I mean, my model Y, it feels like more of a performance vehicle. So I wanted some performance oriented tires. And after doing my research and seeing all the reviews, I went with these. The Michelin Pied Sport All Season 4s. Highly rated on tire rack. It has these super cool tread looking patterns to it. Good wet and dry performance. But the best part, it has one of the thickest treads for any tire. 10, 30 seconds, which means the tires are gonna last longer and I won't have to get new tires sooner like I had to do with my OEM tires. But I guess I didn't do enough research because I thought these were EV tires. But now when you look at it, one thing that's missing is the foam. Echo! No foam. So I needed answers. I went straight to the source, Michelin. I got on a call with Russell, the technical communications director, and he had some interesting things to say. Michelin's strategy is to make the large majority of its tires EV ready. And what that is, is you have the same promise, the same technologies, whether it's an EV or a non-EV. Now, that tire, the Michelin Pilot Sport Off Season 4, is what we call an ultra high performance tire. It's made for handling. You probably noticed some changes in your handling characteristics because that tire is designed to be this incredible balance of performance in all seasons. But the price you paid for it is probably in your range. However, even though there wasn't any foam in these tires, because the tread was so thick and whatever rubber they used was amazing, it was actually quieter than my OEM tires. When I was doing my sound test, I was getting around 79 dBs. 79.8 on the dB meter, which is really good. And the compound they used is really good at gripping the road, good handling, and really good at slowing down. Maybe a little too good. Oh, the regen. However, with these, the EV Michelin Primacy All Seasons, as you can see, there's foam in here. Echo, echo. A lot more quieter. And the foam actually does make the tire weigh a little bit more than the non-EV tire, but only like a 0.2 difference. This one is 24.4 pounds, the EV tire. The non-EV, 24.2. If you've ever looked inside of a tire, an EV tire, a particular EV tire, there's foam that goes all the way around and it's glued in. And they are designed, among other things, to reduce certain types of noise, cavity noise, right? And that dampens it. That is a huge difference. EV tire. Non-EV tire. And on the dB meter, I was getting 67 dBs for the EV tire versus 79 on the non-EV tire. But one major problem with the foam is that it costs more. That foam is not free. And the process of putting that foam isn't free. So that makes them more expensive. So one thing you didn't know is that a basketball is kind of like a tire. If it's underinflated, sure, you have more control because more of the tire or the basketball touches the ground, but it doesn't roll as good. And the same rules apply to tires. If you lower the air pressure, let's say by three PSI, I'm not recommending this, right? You're also gonna take that contact patch and make it wider. And what that's gonna do is you're going to wear the shoulders faster. And the shoulders are the part, I mean, you think about a tire, it tapers. They've already got less tread, right? And eventually you've got to get it to nothing as it gets to the sidewalk. And so you're just gonna lower the life of that tire significantly. If you go way too low, it becomes a safety issue. However, if you overinflate it, when it touches the ground, only part it touches is like right here. So there's less contact to the ground, decreased rolling resistance. However, you get less control is it's gonna make more of a pinging sound when you bounce it. That's called cavity noise. And the same rules apply to tires. If you overinflate it past the recommended tire pressure, usually found on the driver's side door jam, sure it might give you a tiny bump in efficiency, but it also means less grip and reduced control and possibly increased cavity noise. If you put more air in the tire, it becomes more rigid. Part of the tire that touches the road becomes narrow. And so you're wearing the centers and not the shoulders. And it gets a little bit noisier depending on how much you put in there. And yes, it's probably gonna be less comfortable. The all season fours is a much more performance oriented tire. And one huge thing I noticed was the one pedal driving. With these tires on, the car slowed down much faster than before, most likely due to the grip. But here's the trade-off, more grip equals more rolling resistance. And at one point my efficiency was over 300 Watts per mile. And if you didn't know in Tesla's at least, a higher Watts per mile means the car is less efficient. But after breaking the tires down, this is a 40,000 mile tire. You can see how slippery it is now because it's well worn. Looks good still. I was getting around 292 Watts per mile. That was around 115 miles per gallon E, which is good, but not great. And that's where the trade-off hit me. Pilot Sport all season four, because that tire is designed to be this incredible balance of performance in all seasons, you got more tread mass, but the price you pay for it is probably in your range. For ultimate efficiency, which is where you're gonna get best ranges, you call the Primacy family. When I finally swapped into the Michelin E Primacy all seasons, these were sexy. It has this velvety finish to it. These super cool, clean treads for maximum efficiency. But when I actually drove with them on, that's when things got interesting. The ride was stiffer, but the craziest part, the car actually took longer to slow down with that one pedal driving. Handling is not bad, but the S4 is definitely better. And the efficiency gain with this EV tire, I wanted to make sure I had good numbers before releasing this video and finding the results. So almost 4,000 miles later on these EV tires, I was getting 273 Watts per mile, which is equivalent to 123 miles per gallon E. So the reality, I was expecting this tire, EV specific tire, to blow my performance tire out of the water. But the difference was tiny, only an eight miles per gallon E difference between an EV tire versus a non-EV tire. However, one thing I noticed with the EV tire is long road trip efficiency. With the non-EV tire of the AS4s, long road trip efficiency was brutal. We did a trip to Austin, Texas, over 1,300 miles. My efficiency was a whopping 325. With the E primacies, even though I only did like a 500 mile trip, my Watts per mile was down to 270, which is a huge difference. But here's the part nobody tells you. EVs are so much heavier and with that instant torque, it's like a tire shredder compared to gas cars. So the real question, are EV specific tires actually made and designed to handle that extra weight and torque? The amount of torque that you see in EVs, it's maybe been reserved for things like Porsches and other brands. We know that. I mean, it's not new. Let's talk about what it means for a vehicle to be heavier. The tire does not hold the load, it's the air in the tire. So when you have a heavier vehicle, you have two choices. You either put a larger tire on the vehicle, just flat out holds more air, or you increase the inflation pressure. That's why many of the popular electric vehicles, they have inflation pressures around 42 PSI, when kind of the old school standard was 35 PSI. They're heavier, kind of for the same size tire. And so you just put more air in. Now, here's a trick. It goes back to the conversation we just had. When you put more air in it, it's like when you put more air in a basketball. You make this heavier vehicle and you don't make the tire larger, but then it's noisier, certain types of noise. It doesn't flex as much, it's less comfortable. And that means you have more forces in that smaller area and it wears faster. Turns out at the end of the day, it's not about which tire is better, an EV tire or a non-EV tire. It's about the way the driver drives. For the most part, we don't change our personalities when we buy an EV. If you like to have a lot of fun when you drive an internal combustion engine and you go to an EV, you're still going to have a lot of fun. But if you're a very conservative driver in internal combustion engine, and you go to an EV, you'll stay that way. It's why we have families, tires. If you're this sports enthusiast, you love to drive and that's kind of a passion for you, or even if it's just a little bit of cornering in the city, we have the Pilot Sport family for you. That's pretty easy, Pilot Sport, right? And all season, Pilot Sport all season four, Pilot Sport for us. If you're looking for efficiency, that is our primacy. If you're looking for this all over performance, one of our most popular EV tires is the Michelin Cross Climber 2. Because you take some of the hit and range, it's a 60,000 mile warranty on it. You'll get close to 60,000 miles on an EV. I'm looking this way because that's where the Michelin parking lot is. It's probably the most popular tire in that parking lot right now. So it seems that EV tires isn't all hype. It actually does increase your efficiency, but only in longer road trips. I honestly prefer the non-EV Pilot Sport all season fours over the ePrimacy All Seasons EV tire. It's grippier, it's more fun to drive, and the efficiency hit wasn't that bad. But if road trips are your number one priority and you want to potentially charge at a charger five, 10 minutes less, then you want to go with an EV tire like the ePrimacy All Seasons. I was also told by Michelin that they do not design EV specific tires. All Michelin tires are developed to be EV ready and feature performance attributes that benefit ICE, EV, and hybrid vehicles. At the end of the day, there are a million tire brands out there, Hankou, Continental, Goodyear. Just make sure you pick up one with a good warranty. And remember, the biggest factor isn't EV or non-EV, it's how you drive. Oh yeah, and Michelin did provide me with the tires, but the opinions are my own and I didn't get paid at all. Go! God, that thing is so fast. How is this allowed for kids? Let's just keep rolling, huh?