How to Take Proper Care of Your EV’s Tires – MotorTrend

Tire maintenance is possibly the most overlooked part of vehicle care, although there are certainly mechanics who would argue the once-a-year (or less frequent) oil change is also in the running (although oil changes are on the way out with EVs, of course). Regardless of the rankings, failing to pay attention to your electric car’s tires could result in reduced range, increased wear, or in a worse case scenario, tire failure that could lead to a crash. Obviously, we’d all like to avoid that, so the least we can do is properly take care of our tires.

So what can be done to make sure your tires are in tip-top shape? The first step is the most obvious and the easiest: Visually inspect your tires on a regular basis. This is one area where EV owners have a harder time of things than owners of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Why? Because unlike fuel-burning engines that need regular oil changes, the long maintenance interval of a typical EV means you won’t have a knowledgeable mechanic visually inspecting your car, including its tires, once every couple of months or so.

Instead, you’ll want to set a reminder on whatever calendar or scheduling app you use (the car or an app designed for your car may also be able to remind you as well) to make sure you remember to give your tires a proper once-over on a regular schedule. Michelin North America technical communications director Russell Shepherd also points out that when inspecting your tires, you should be sure to feel and look at the inside shoulder of the tire, too—not just the outside.

Although you might want to lump this in with the visual inspection, checking your tread depth is not something that can just be eyeballed. The minimum tread depth generally recognized as safe to drive is 2/32 of an inch—a reasonably small amount of tread, certainly too small to be eyeballed accurately. Fortunately, there’s a handy, affordable way to gauge if your tires are due for replacement.

To check your tire tread for adequate depth, take a standard U.S. penny and insert it into a groove in the tire’s tread with Lincoln’s head pointed downward into the groove. If the groove is deep enough to cover the top of Lincoln’s head, you still have enough tire tread. If you can see all of Lincoln’s lovely coiffure, it’s time to replace your rubber.

Definitely check your tires’ tread across the whole width of the tire, too, as the uneven wear mentioned in the visual inspection section applies here, too. The penny test can provide a reference to help highlight uneven wear before it’s visually noticeable to the unaided eye. If any part of the tire has less than 2/32 of an inch tread depth, it’s time to replace the tire.

Like the visual inspection and the tread depth check, this is one that should be performed regularly. If it’s convenient to do so, an EV driver should, ideally, check and correct their tire pressure at least monthly, if not more often. Doing so will help ensure their tires are as close to the factory-recommended inflation pressure as possible, which in turn will help ensure the vehicle achieves its stated range.

“We work hard to make sure that our tires maintain the air pressure, but over time you will lose some air pressure, and that becomes more important towards maintaining the performance in the range of electrical,” said Shepherd. “So definitely check your tires.”

Keeping your EV’s tires properly inflated can also have other benefits beyond just making sure you get the most out of your battery’s range, however. Keeping your tires inflated properly can also reduce noise, and tire noise is all the more noticeable in a quiet EV. Improperly inflated tires can also wear more quickly, and that wear can in turn increase rolling resistance further, compounding the problem.

Tire rotation might seem like one of those archaic practices of yesteryear, like changing the oil in your dinosaur-juice-burning car. But in reality, tire rotation is even more important for EVs than it is for combustion-powered cars. So just like you set a reminder to visually inspect your electric car’s tires and check the tread depth and air pressure, you should set a reminder to rotate your EV’s tires every few months or as recommended by the manufacturer.

Why is tire rotation important in the first place? As noted in the visual inspection and tread depth sections above, tires can wear unevenly due to a variety of factors. To prevent that uneven wear from pushing your tires into replacement before their time, it’s important to rotate your tires to distribute the wear more evenly across the whole set given the heavier weight of EVs (EVs on average are about 10 percent heavier than their ICE counterparts) and higher wear rates of EV tires (as much as 20 percent greater than a comparably sized ICE vehicle).

As you can see, there’s nothing especially tricky about maintaining your electric vehicle’s tires properly, except perhaps remembering to do it. So set those reminders, stay on top of your EV tire maintenance, and drive safely, happily, and efficiently for months and years to come.