One of the greatest challenges facing the Electric Vehicle (EV) category is undoubtedly the fact that, while consumer demand for alternatives to fossil fuels is high, the infrastructure to support the rapid uptake of EV or Hybrid vehicles simply doesn’t exist.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that the biggest hurdle is the lack of charging stations, or that structural challenges centre solely around our ability to recharge the vehicles (including the capability of the electrical grid, applicability of renewable energy or increased reliance on coal-powered electricity to provide electrical charge) but the reality is that EVs are being rapidly rolled out in to a world that simply isn’t ready for them.
One area these vehicles are being shackled in Australia is by overregulation and archaic laws, which sees many of the intuitive driver aids available on Teslas in other markets unable to be used on Australian roads.
Sales data shows that consumer interest in EVs is high, and constantly growing. As of the third quarter of 2022, VFACTS reported that EVs represented almost 10% of Passenger and SUV vehicle sales in Australia, however as Steve Burke from Toyo Tyres Australia points out, EVs are forcing innovation and advancement in areas that may not be instantly apparent.
“Electric Vehicle tyres need three main characteristics - low rolling resistance to minimise the drain on the vehicle’s drive system (or maximise range), high levels of grip to complement the electric motor’s instant max torque delivery, and low transmitted cabin noise because there’s no engine noise like an internal combustion engine. The issue is, using current tyre technology, these three attributes don’t exist in harmony!” begins Steve.
In the ‘pre-Tesla’ era of EVs, our perception of battery-powered cars was relatively uninspiring. EVs were small and economical city cars with extremely limited range, and marketed heavily as ‘ecologically-friendly’. This skewed perceptions of EVs, and the natural association was to match these vehicles with a low rolling resistance ‘eco’ tyre like our NanoEnergy 3.
And while commuter vehicles like Nissan’s Leaf or Toyota’s ever-growing range of electric and hybrid vehicles might be a perfect fit for our NanoEnergy 3, the ‘post-Tesla’ era of EVs has taught us that electric vehicles have the potential to be fun to drive and exceptionally capable.
Then of course there was Ken Block’s ‘Electrikhana’ video in 2022, where the tyre-slaying stunt driver - famous for his flame-spitting, hard-revving internal combustion cars of videos gone by - stepped out in a hot-rodded Audi S1 sporting a custom twin electric engine, all-wheel drive setup.
The almost ten minute long video is a tyre-smoking tribute to Block’s amazing driving skills, which reportedly torched over 100 Proxes R888R tyres during production! The R888R tyres supplied to the vehicle were custom-made, and specifically designed to cope with the huge power and instant torque delivery of the electric engines.
And while we won’t all be commuting to work in highly customised Audi race cars like Ken, it’s more likely that we’ll see tyre manufacturers refining their offerings to bring EV and hybrid-specific tyres to the market.
“The Teslas currently use a UHP (ultra high performance) tyre because that’s the product type that offers the highest levels of grip to suit their needs which makes them safe to drive around, however there’s some new & existing technologies that are being refined and developed that will help us develop EV tyres that have high grip levels together with low rolling resistance and low noise - current generation UHP tyres designed for ICE vehicles tend to compromise rolling resistance to provide the grip levels required by vehicle manufacturers,” says Steve.
The two that are hardest to lock down are high levels of grip and low rolling resistance. “There’s a lot of work being done in Europe where the market really prioritises Wet Grip. Toyo and most other manufacturers are focused on developing a new generation of tyres designed specifically to meet the demanding requirements of the current and next generation of EVs,” adds Steve in closing.
