Are EV-Specific Tires Better than Popular Non-EV Tires? — 2024
Alright Brent, it's the first test of 2024. It's an EV focused test. So we've done EV testing actually quite a bit of EV testing in the past, but it was always just two tires.
We had two Teslas, so it was tire versus tire, mano a mano. And we learned a lot about those products. But we always wanted more.
We wanted to cover more and expand. Right? In fact, in this test, we're testing nine different specs. Not only that, but we're testing cross-category. We have Grand Touring All-Season tires in this test.
We have Ultra High Performance All-Season tires in this test. Even two Max Performance Summer Only tires in this test. So that'll answer questions that we've had through the years and certainly that our customers have been asking.
Now, not only that, there's more. We're also testing EV specific tires to maybe non-EV specific tires. Tires that weren't engineered necessarily from the ground up to be used on EVs, But tires we know EV customers are buying and are very popular with those customers. Certainly. And some of these tires we've tested before, they're old favorites that we have a pretty good idea of how they perform.
Others have been on the market for a little bit, but like I said, we could only test two tires at a time before. So we haven't really gotten around to testing them yet. And others are brand new, exciting, hot off the presses, 2024 new releases that really nobody has tested yet.
So we’re going to get a full, comprehensive picture of how these tires perform. It's gonna be great! Yeah, absolutely. So let's go and get started on road rides! We talk about the road ride portion of our testing quite a bit, but I don't think we've ever done a really good job of explaining what it is. This is where we figure out what drivers will live with every day that they have their tires.
This is their 95% of tire experience... happens on the road ride. We have a six mile loop around the Tire Rack headquarters that consists of a wide variety of surface types condition, age. You know, some of it's really well maintained, some of it is very broken. And so we talk about ride quality determined by, you know, how well the car rides over broken surfaces. It's not just about softness but it's also about control and composure over impacts.
Second thing is noise comfort. Yeah. And it's noise comfort, not noise volume. Right. It's not purely about decibels. And the last thing is steering and on-road handling, which that kind of wordy description just talks about, A: How does it feel driving straight ahead? You know, at around town speeds, at highway speeds.
And then also just light steering maneuvers. Does the car respond the way you want it to? Does the steering feel natural and intuitive? Those kind of general steering and light handling characteristics. So now, let's get started. Spec one: Bridgestone Turanza EV. So ride quality: Overall, tuned towards the softer side.
Very comfortable. Maybe could use a little bit better composure, a little bit better control. Right. But but absolute comfort is is good. Noise: Similarly overall very good. And then steering: It's light, quick, accurate, But we would like a little bit more personality to it. Right? Right.
This is the Continental ProContact RX, and it's the (T1) spec in parentheses. And that means it is the original equipment Tesla tire. It is a composed, controlled, yet slightly taut ride.
Right now we're on the highway. It's coarse here. I'm noticing a little bit of a grindy type interaction. Yeah, more just elevated general noise levels. Not bad, but I'm having to raise my voice maybe a little more than I would expect, this is rough concrete.
When you are on a smooth surface, it is whisper quiet. Yeah. It's everything that you'd expect from an EV driving experience. The steering right here through the off-ramp, It is very good. It's on the sportier side of what I would expect from a touring tire like this.
Alright, we're in spec three, which is the Goodyear EcoReady. It's very eco-focused, which kind of goes right along with the whole “electric vehicle” thing. It does feel, though just a little...
Perhaps a little uncontrolled, a little jiggly. There is a little bit of that. Yeah. Yeah, it does a good job over big bumps. It rounds them over really nicely. Let's talk about steering and... How is the steering? It’s not...it’s not great.
A little weird? It’s not great. What do you mean, TJ? It's it's a little unnatural. It's a little nonlinear. It's... it's pretty vague. Yeah. And doesn't respond super sharply right on center and around center.
And then it builds up both weight and response once you're pretty far off center. This is the Goodyear ElectricDrive 2. And let's just get it out of the way.
It is... It's great. It's great. Everything's composed and controlled. It’s subtle, and it's controllled Like, stop! Stop! Right. It somehow manages to be comfortable, composed and forgiving. Big impacts, little impacts, sure there's a little bit of that kind of concrete resonance, but that's, that's almost at an unavoidable level. Right, it's, it's basically impossible to get rid of that.
The aspect that, you know, can sometimes be overlooked is steering. As far as just feel and precision and weight and build up of effort as you're, you know, mid-corner, it just it checks all of those boxes. Hankook iON evo AS: And this one is probably the most hyped EV tire. You could really feel everything.
I think I called it transparent, Some of the tires, they just kind of, they soak things up just a little bit better. Yeah. They hide things. They round them over, they mute some of the smaller packs. whereas this one, like you said, you can, you can feel everything. Lots of tires, you know, really, really concentrating on being quiet. Right. And you've got a group of them
that are really, really strong at that in this test. And I would say the Hankook is just outside of that group. Steering is good. Not great. Yeah.
It doesn't have any really bad habits. It's not particularly engaging. And it always feels like it's just a little bit behind the driver. Yeah.
And we're switching categories. Performance categories. We went from Grand Touring All-Season to now we're in Ultra High Performance All-Season. This is the Michelin Pilot Sport All Season 4, and despite it not being an EV focused tire, it's one of the best selling tires for Teslas.
EV drivers love this tire. that has love this tire. Right, EV drivers love this tire. If they don't love it, they sure do buy the heck out of it. Not only are like little bumps there, yes. But it's just the, the more medium sized undulations you just felt more.
That stiffer casing of the tire just kind of reveals the less smooth parts of the road. It feels like a performance tire because it is a performance tire. Weird. Yeah, I know right? Noise... it, it's louder.
It's a UHP All-Season tire. Yeah it is, it's a little bit louder. We're on the home stretch.
Our second UHP All-Season. Correct. Only this time. It's an EV-focused. Right. It's marketed as an EV-focused, Ultra High Performance All-Season. It's the Yokohama ADVAN Sport EV A/S. Coming at it from a UHP All-Season side of things, it is pretty comfortable.
Big bumps, The peaks seem well rounded, like they've chopped them off. Yeah. What about noise? It’s pretty good as well. It has good steering feel right? Oh yeah. What about the steering?
And in the back of your mind, everything is this, I will call it telepathic, but it's almost like it's just doing what you ask of it. Right. It just feels natural. Yeah. And right. Alrighty hoo boy, here we are, spec eight.
And we are finally into the summer tires. This is the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S. It's refined, it's firm, it's taut, it’s performance tire, almost stiff, not quite, I won't quite say that word.
But that's kind of to be expected. It’s comfortable in it’s own performance tire-y way. Steering feel: I am a sucker for good steering. That is my favorite attribute to evaluate. That's the most important thing to me for a tire.
And yeah, I fell in love. The only mild complaint that I have about the steering on this tire is at low speeds, it is a little bit light. It firms up nicely at any kind of, you know, anything over 45 basically, it firms up, but straight ahead at, you know, 30 to 40 it's a little bit light. This is the Pirelli P Zero (PZ4).
And this one's a little interesting because Pirelli doesn't bill this necessarily, the line as an EV-focused tire, But this size is “Elect” branded. Ride quality is Composed, controlled, maybe a little bit more total up and down motion. Noise, similar story. You can tell it's a performance tire.
There are some tones, and steering is quick, eager fun. Yep. There we go! I don't need that back there. Pay no attention to the laptop in the backseat. So, good all around.
To compare the tires in our test, we put each tire through the same 100 mile loop, and we report the vehicle indicated watt hours per mile, and also calculate what the hypothetical range could be at full charge. The EV-specific tires delivered some of the best efficiency, with the Hankook iON evo AS achieving the lowest consumption values on average over the 100 mile loop. While not necessarily touted as an EV-focused tire, Goodyear's EcoReady also provided good efficiency and bested the Tesla's own original equipment Continental ProContact RX. Essentially matching the OE tire, the ElectricDrive 2 and Yokohama ADVAN Sport EV A/S delivered equivalent consumption performance. While the P Zero (PZ4) is branded with Pirelli's “Elect” marking, it's still a Max Performance Summer tire, so its OE comparable consumption performance was an impressive surprise for our team.
Bridgestone’s Turanza EV rounded out the group of tires that could effectively match the vehicle's OE range performance. The Michelin Pilot Sport 4S and Pilot Sport All Season 4 did stand out as marginally different than the others in the test, with adequate but worse consumption performance. Both would probably consume appreciably more energy than one of the touring tires. But when we did the math for what the theoretical range reduction would be on our Tesla Model 3s, our team agreed that the approximately 18 and 23 mile change wouldn't be a dealbreaker for a driver with access to daily charging. Alright, breaking and skidpad testing.
Let's explain those a little bit. And for the, for this EV test we are measuring 50 to 0 mile an hour braking distances in the wet and in the dry. And it can be the difference between a near miss and not a near miss, right? Not to fear monger or scare people, but, you know, if I'm in traffic and things start to bunch up and maybe I'm not 100% paying attention, and all of a sudden I'm hard on those brakes, I want every bit of braking ability so I don't touch that car in front of me, or worse. Right? okay. And then cornering traction or lateral grip.
We take a 200 foot or several laps around our 200 foot diameter skidpad, and we report the number in lateral G's. But you know, why would that matter to somebody? I am doing a corner and all of a sudden the road didn't turn the way I thought it was going to. I overcooked it. I misjudged something, right? You want all the reserve grip possible so you can continue to maintain that corner, make your correction, get around, miss whatever you want to miss. It could be the difference between “Ooh, that was close,” and a call your insurance company. Absolutely.
Both of the Max Performance Summer tires were right at home on the wet surface, and not surprisingly, both could maintain an average cornering force over 0.9 of a G around the skidpad. While the Ultra High Performance All-Season Pilot Sport All Season 4 was about 0.04 of a G behind the P Zero (PZ4), it managed to outbreak both of its summer tire counterparts in an impressive 92.3ft.
Heading up the Touring All-Season group was the Goodyear EcoReady, which almost matched these wet performance front runners and genuinely put a smile on our faces once it hit us this was a 70% sustainable Grand Touring All-Season tire. The original equipment ProContact RX was certainly no slouch while it was slightly back, maintained its competitiveness, with the main group. Falling back into a somewhat noticeable group of stragglers of sorts were the Turanza EV, ElectricDrive 2, iON Evo AS, and somewhat surprisingly, because of its higher performance category, the ADVAN Sport EV AS. In order to get the whole picture of performance, our test switched from the wet to dry, which naturally gave each of the tires in the test a boost in absolute grip. Once again, though, the most performance focused category of tires delivered the shortest stopping distances and the highest lateral traction levels, with their summer-only compounds and larger, more aggressive tread features. Showing its performance chops, although at an all-season level, the Pilot Sport All-Season 4 needed just over five feet longer to stop, and maintained a respectable 0.9 of a G around the skidpad.
Its fellow Ultra High Performance All-Season competitor, once again seemed to deliver braking distances and cornering forces that fell in line with the touring tires, but didn't challenge the three frontrunners. The two Goodyears and the Hankook stopped in similar fashion and delivered respectable cornering traction, with the iON evo AS coming in just shy of the leaders. Impressively, the ProContact RX nearly matched the Max Performance Summer P Zero (PZ4) in lateral traction, but fell to the back of the pack in braking distances. Matching the Continental’s
frankly acceptable dry braking was the Turanza EV, but luckily the Bridgestone’s lateral traction was right in line with the group of touring tires. Okay, let's talk track testing because this is probably the one aspect of what we do that, I suppose, for just average drivers is probably a little bit difficult to relate. You know, how is this applicable to me And it's not just about the lap time.
Our track testing gives a complete picture of the overall capability of a tire. And so if you see a, you know, a one second difference in lap times, that makes a big difference to what you are going to experience every time you accelerate, brake or corner. And so we divide it out into four subjective criteria that we evaluate when we are on the track. So first is braking behavior. How well does the car slow down on that tire? But also how well does it communicate with you? How does it feel? So after braking behavior, is steering characteristics which is a huge one for anybody that actually enjoys the act of driving.
You know, how responsive is the tire? Does it give me the right portion of turning response, yes, to what I expected it to be? You know, Is it, is it slow? Is it disconnected? Does it feel natural? And then cornering traction is the next thing which how much grip does it have through the turns? How much speed can I maintain through turns of all sizes and shapes. And then the last is handling and balance which kind of encompasses sort of everything but it's also just the athleticism of the tire, the willingness of the tire. Is it doing what I want it to do? And is it happy about that? When it came time to combine absolute grip with handling characteristics, the order stayed mostly the same, but with some surprises. Luckily, the two summer tires had both grip and balance, which delivered not only the quickest but most easily controlled laps. This is the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S.
It’s forgiving at the limit, it's got a high limit to begin with, it's just it's just easy to drive. It's inched perfect. Pirelli P Zero (PZ4).
So it is graceful. It is beautiful. It is easy to drive. It doesn't have quite the outright traction than what the PS4S does. So close. Whereas the Pirelli, it wants to glide around a little bit or wants to move around a little bit more. It has very eager steering, but it never feels like it overpowers what the available traction can provide you.
Following closely behind was the Ultra High Performance All-Season Michelin, but its category counterpart, the ADVAN Sport EV A/S found itself as the slowest in the test over a second and a half behind, and even bested by the touring tires. The Michelin Pilot Sport All Season 4. And this is a non-EV focused tire. You really lean on things now, here in the corners. It could use a little, I think, more accuracy and precision I think you were saying. I agree. Absolutely.
Overall, the braking is strong, like the lateral traction is strong. The Yokohama ADVAN Sport EV A/S. A: You can tell that it has lower outright capability and B: it kind of struggles to put everything together in a nice way. Now, that being said, if you just step back and drive it at 85, 90 percent, it's really okay. The EcoReady and ProContact RX were able to turn consistent and quick times, which would indicate they're more than up to the task for wet road unpredictability. The Goodyear EcoReady.
Not too shabby. I really appreciate the strong braking. It's maybe a little bit wonky. We found that on the road. Right? It's definitely not the favorite trait of this tire amongst our two test drivers here.
The Continental ProContact RX (T1). Steering is hefty. Feels nice. Has good precision to it. Overall, it feels like it's, again, a decent performer.
It's a little bit edgy, though. At the limit if you... Almost the price you pay for that sharper steering. Not a bad performance out of the original equipment tire. The lower half of the touring tires felt subjectively weaker and turned out to be objectively slower. While they had enough grip to get the job done, they just had less of it than their counterparts, and a few had difficulty navigating dynamic maneuvers.
Wet track testing, Bridgestone Turanza EV. A lot of understeer, braking you really have to back up your corner. Steering is quick and precise, but just like we found in the road, it’s light, there's not really much feel for resistance.
The Goodyear ElectricDrive 2. It feels nice. But it's just eager and fluid and feels just right. It has a tendency to overpower. It kind of over estimates itself. It does have the traction to backup that steering. Right? It's like an exciting puppy, you know, like it tries to run on the hardwood floor, and then all of a sudden, here comes the wall.
We are now on the Hankook iON evo AS. Steering, it's nice and pointy. If it had a little more traction to work with, I think it could do great things.
Yeah, it's stepping out I would say “abruptly” is a word for it. I agree yeah, abrupt. Especially if you're hard on the power and you haven't kind of set things up nice and smoothly. Our team continued to find the differences and sometimes lack of differences in performance categories fascinating. Naturally, the two Max Performance Summer tires found an advantage in almost every corner, which added up to a substantial objective advantage on the stopwatch and a subjective one felt in the driver's seat. The Michelin Pilot Sport 4S. Even as a passenger
things just feel faster, more aggressive. Yes. You’re engaging the core, it builds cornering force with less slip angle, so it's just less turn of the steering wheel to change direction. And when you're mid-corner, it has more grip. It's just hanging on more.
The Pirelli P Zero (PZ4). Everything just feels a little more elegant. It's a little more put together, it's not as “whoa” pointy as what the Michelin is. You can tell it doesn't have quite the lateral traction. So it's not, the “save me” that, you know, you know that you have to glide it around and it feels athletic.
While somewhat overshadowed in breaking, the ProContact RX was able to use every bit of its traction available, punching above its weight class and in fact, lapping quicker than the very capable Pilot Sport All Season 4. This is the Michelin Pilot Sport All Season 4. It's pretty good.
You can feel that, hey, something's different from the touring tires. This is the USP All-Season tire. It's easy to correct mistakes.
It's very, it's forgiving but things, it feels tight. Everything feels a little tighter. The Continental ProContact RX. It's kind of as much as you can expect if not more from a touring tire. Like, I like the steering a lot. Yeah. Overall traction, again it feels great.
The Hankook iON evo AS also seemed particularly balanced and easy to drive, delivering times a hair off the aforementioned group. Man, this thing is a pleasure to drive. It is a joy to drive this easy to control, easier to kind of gauge. It's steering is good overall the traction balance is good. Yeah.
As long as you don't try to push it too hard, as long as you don't go over its limits. A bit further behind were the best of the rest, delivering what were perfectly adequate touring all-season laps. The Turanza EV once again felt slightly reluctant to quick maneuvers, and it showed with times that were fine for the category but struggled for consistency. It's reasonably balanced if you stay below its traction limit. Over the limit it tends to just kind of smear around a little bit. It's never, never snappy. It's acceptable.
Right? Yeah. It is. The ADVAN Sport EV A/S however, was lapping significantly behind the pace of the touring tires, let alone its own Ultra High Performance All-Season compatriot. With an odd mix of handling characteristics and lower levels of traction, which only made the struggle worse.
I'm just being a little bit more gentle with it, and I'm not trying to throw it around. I'm not braking deep and turning with big inputs. I'm just being gentle and very, very precise with it the steering. It can't really keep up.
And then once it does eventually come back after your inputs held, then the thing just wants to snap on you a little bit. Alright, that was what? Seven, eight, nine? Many days. A million days of testing.
Put nine specs through their paces. A lot of people try to tell you that if you drive an EV, you have to have an EV focused tire on your car, right? Mandatory. Like it’s state law or something. And we've just proven over and over again that that's not necessarily the case. You know, if efficiency, range, whatever you want to call it is your highest priority, then yeah, probably an EV focused tire will be your best bet.
Right. But what the non-EV focused tires gave up in that realm wasn't even all that much. I mean it was it was something, but yeah it wasn't significant. Especially not if you have access to daily charging. Right.
It's you know unless you're really stressing the limit of your battery pack, you're probably just fine. Right? Especially when you consider that the non-EV focused tires were generally the strongest in the wet, Right. In the dry, you know that's traction. That is, I hate to say it, but that is safety.
Another story we saw was the difference in categories. Yes. Our Grand Touring All-Season tires. Yes. There were differences, but typically the absolute smoothest, most comfortable, quietest tires were from the Grand Touring All-Season category. And then the Ultra High Performance All-Season, that story was yeah, that was pretty interesting. There was kind of the tale of two tires there.
Then of course, you know, the Max Performance Summer tires, which happened to be the technical winners of the test as far as our scoring goes. Because of the way we evaluate, you know, they are both strong on the road, and of course they rocked it on the track and so they ended up at the top. So yeah that's, that's Test One, down, on the books. Let's go ahead and get ready for Test Two, alright? Let's do it! Watch for our EV tires winter performance evaluation after our 2025 winter test season.
2024-06-26 07:37
