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knightmb

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 12, 2015
Messages
2,212
Location
Franklin, TN
A recent topic came up about the Goodyear "ElectricDrive" tires that just came out recently. Oddly enough, I can't really find any reviews from anyone using them on a Nissan Leaf (or any other EV for that matter), so I went ahead to decided to become a test subject for these tires. The rear Ecopias on my Leaf were about bald and I needed new tires anyway. So I bought some ElectricDrive tires and rotated those new tires to the front and my Front Ecopias (which were still good relative to the rear), were rotated to the back of the Leaf. I'm going to see how the first 5,000 miles go and then report back to this topic with any data I have.

To start with, the cost. No Tire shop carries these in inventory or could get them from their own warehouse, I had to order them and ship them to my tire shop. They cost $210 per tire, before tax or shipping fees. Ouch, this is the most expensive Leaf tire I've ever bought in the last 10 years (The Ecopias come in second at $161 a tire) Here is what the marketing material from Goodyear claims about them:
The ElectricDrive features Goodyear’s SoundComfort Technology®, which acts as a built-in sound barrier that helps reduce road noise. It is also designed with an asymmetric tread pattern and specialized tread compound that provides enhanced all-season traction, giving EV drivers confident handling in both wet and dry road conditions. Offers enhanced all-season traction and longevity.

I measured the new tires tread depth at 11/32 or roughly 9 mm. My rear Ecopia are fading away at 5/32 or 4 mm, but being in the rear; they should live a little longer.

Interesting data I found, my Ecopia Tires UTQG (Uniform Tire Quality Grading) was rated at 480 (not bad, a little better than the average tire), but the Goodyear ElectricDrive UTQG was rated at 700 !? Either that is a typo in the marketing stuff or the tires are just solid chunks of carbon. :lol: I'll do some more research to find out if that rating is correct. :roll:

Website for them:
https://www.goodyear.com/en-US/tires/electricdrive

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I took some pictures of my Ecopias just as a visual reference in design difference. They are worn more for sure, but at least one can see what different approach different companies take for EV tires.

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DougWantsALeaf said:
Good luck with the testing. Thanks for being the guinea pig for the rest of us.

It's been interesting so far. I've only had 1 day of driving on them, but I already notice a big difference in quite a few areas of driving. I've had so many years of driving on Ecopia tires, I'm very accustomed to how they sound, drive, handle in various dry, wet, snow conditions. These ElectricDrive tires are totally alien to me. I don't know if they are more efficient or do better or worse in the rain or snow yet, but just from dry highway driving, there is something to the tires that stand out the most. The sound of them. Or better yet, lack of sound. I've already had the chance to drive them all the up to 100 mph (for science! officer...) so a lot of high speed interstate/highway driving today.
The highway sound is completely different. At first, I thought "naw, just me, thinking it is making no sound", but when I went across a bridge, where you get all the tire sound reflected in your face and the bridge is usually made of a different material that makes everyone's tires "howl" as they drive across. These tires made no sound, no sound reflection, it was the weirdest thing that caught my attention to start paying more attention to the lack of sound or what little sound I could hear, totally different frequency, on the very, very low end. Basically, once you get going fast enough the "sound" of the rear tires gets loud enough, but the front tires are totally silent. I really thought the whole "Goodyear’s SoundComfort Technology" was just some marketing BS, but now I am wondering what magic of science did this. :lol:
 
It's weird hearing the "rear" tires all the time. I am accustomed the the "road" sound being all around, you couldn't tell if it was coming from the front or back, thus I was also using Ecopia for all 4 tires, so that makes sense. Now it's no road sound (for the most part, I can still detect the low frequency if I drive fast enough) from the front of the Leaf and the rear tires are the nosiest now, but only at a high enough speed. If I was sitting in the back seat, it might be more noticeable.

I did a little research on how "tire sound dampening" technology works, read some reviews on a lot of tires (other than Goodyear) that claim to have quiet tires and most reviews said they couldn't tell a difference.

I did find that how loud a tire can be as part of the Specs, they use an A,B,C type scale with A being quiet and B being 2x louder, C being 4x louder, etc. The Goodyear ElectricDrive are rated A, so I guess someone did do a microphone test on them at some point. I believe, according to what I read, that puts them at around 67 dB, so about as loud as a person talking. You probably couldn't have a talking conversation if you were trying to talk on top of a truck, movie style at high speed, given the wind noise would drown out everything. :lol:
 
Wow, tires have shot up in price this year. I was planning to replace the original Michelins with the same, but they are $250/tire at TireRack! (The H-rated Bolt tire of the same size is $244.). Maybe I'll go with the ElectricDrives. I was satisfied with the quietness of the OE tires, but am always happy for less tire noise.
 
knightmb said:
They are worn more for sure


Thank you for this information. I see one side of your ecopia tire is worn more. Is that the inside or outside? What PSI were you targeting? Is that uneven wear more from the front or rear location (how long did you have those on rear since last rotation)?
 
bojoho said:
knightmb said:
They are worn more for sure


Thank you for this information. I see one side of your ecopia tire is worn more. Is that the inside or outside? What PSI were you targeting? Is that uneven wear more from the front or rear location (how long did you have those on rear since last rotation)?

The left side is the inside, right side was the outside. I'm running 44 PSI on both brands of tires to keep things the same in that respect since I'm running the ElectricDrive tires on the front first. The uneven wear comes from being on the rear, according to the tire shop, there aren't enough adjustments to align that part properly.
 
I put on a set of 4 of the ElectricDrive tires yesterday. My local tire shop was able to get them next day for $216/ea (just the tire). I also measured the full tread depth at 11/32". After a short drive, my observations compared to the original Michelins that were worn to 4/32":
  • Better ride comfort over rough pavement
  • Less steering response/feedback (who knew this was even possible!)
 
My experience with numb, quiet, durable performance tires is that efficiency is terrible.

See if these are something new.
 
Ok, the first 1,000 miles are done now, so this is less technical and more what I've noticed in the swap.
Being so used to driving on Ecopia tires, most of what I notice is very anecdotal in nature.

The most noticeable thing is the sound. The tires are much quieter than the Ecopias. So much so, it's hard to tell when they are skidding. I noticed this trying to purposely skid the tires around an Interstate exit ramp that does the whole 360 all the way to the highway above it. You know, those types that the turn is so sharp, you have to drive at 25 mph. Well, I was taking that curve at +50 mph and usually the Ecopias are howling the entire way up. These tires sound like "sand being poured out of a large bag" the entire way, very odd hearing that instead. Eventually, I was about to get the rear Ecopia tires to starting squealing, so I knew I had reached the optimal speed for that test at least. :lol:

Handling is very different from the Ecopias. These tires are certainly "stiffer" in the handling of turns. They feel like hard tires on the road when you are turning into varies alleys, streets, driveways, etc. Sharp turning and weight shifting of the Leaf feels like less roll. Acceleration is better than the Ecopia, but braking is not. I can tell some braking distance has been sacrificed by these tires. That leads me to believe that these tires truly are "harder" tires than the Ecopias that I am used to. In my opinion, dry weather driving in these tires means needing to a use a little caution with "aggressive" driving. I've never felt like I'm losing control in the ElectricDrive tires, so might be me just being a little cautious until I'm more comfortable with some really aggressive curves in these tires.

Now having said that, I was expecting the "wet" weather driving to be the Ecopias with reduced performance, but was surprised that they actually do better in wet weather. I don't know if it is the tire design or something else, but the acceleration and braking is certainly better than the Ecopias I am accustomed to driving around on. I know so many places that I can easily "activate" the ABS in the rain with a good push of the brake pedal, but in trying to replicate this on these tires resulted in stopping better and not needing to get ABS involved. That part was very surprising as I usually expect hard tires to perform even worse in the rain.

I haven't had the opportunity to drive them in the snow, so will have to wait until winter and our "once" a year snow we get here. :lol:

As far as efficiency goes, they seem to be identical to the Ecopias. I'm still collecting more data, but so far it looks like you won't sacrifice any range by swapping to these tires. That is actually my driving force to use them as I'm looking more for a tire that is both efficient and will actually last at least close to the warranty for wear. The Ecopias certainly win for efficiency driving, but suck at wear range and only average performance for the all-weather stuff.

Overall, I am enjoying the tires and didn't realize how peaceful "quiet" tires were until I had them. :roll:
 
Yes, snow. Having spent the morning shoveling . . . ;) Winter driving can be a problem. When I went out I took the ICE because it has more clearance. Is the Goodyear - ElectricDrive rated M+S ? If not we can't legally use it during winter months here. Anyway, I'd like to read users' experiences.
 
Toby said:
Yes, snow. Having spent the morning shoveling . . . ;) Winter driving can be a problem. When I went out I took the ICE because it has more clearance. Is the Goodyear - ElectricDrive rated M+S ? If not we can't legally use it during winter months here. Anyway, I'd like to read users' experiences.

They are rated M+S, though can't speak to how well they do in the snow or mud just yet. ;)

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That rating means exactly nothing.

I know. Some years ago our BC Ministry of Highways demanded winter rated tires for all mountain passes. There was push-back from vested interests like car rental companies, fleet operators and coastal residents who don't think they need winter tires. Under duress the Ministry backed off and lowered the requirement to M+S. Considering the ferocity of our mountain storms that is a really dumb decision but politics . . . :roll:

How do the Goodyear Electricdrive tires compare with the Michelin green X OEM on the leaf Plus SV ?
 
SageBrush said:
They are rated M+S

That rating means exactly nothing. There is no specification the tire meets.

Well, not completely nothing. :lol:
It is suppose to mean:
The M+S rating means that a tire has better mud/snow traction than a summer tire, but it doesn't really tell the whole story. An M+S rated tire will have better traction on packed snow or mud, but the rating doesn't reflect traction for wet, soupy mud, slush, ice, fresh snow or even cold, dry pavement.

So is a "Summer" tire really that bad? Is it just a completely smooth tire, no treads? :lol:
 
knightmb said:
SageBrush said:
They are rated M+S

That rating means exactly nothing. There is no specification the tire meets.

Well, not completely nothing. :lol:
It is suppose to mean:
The M+S rating means that a tire has better mud/snow traction than a summer tire, but it doesn't really tell the whole story. An M+S rated tire will have better traction on packed snow or mud, but the rating doesn't reflect traction for wet, soupy mud, slush, ice, fresh snow or even cold, dry pavement.

The next paragraph from https://simpletire.com/learn/tire-buying-guides/how-are-m-plus-s-and-3pms-calculated:
How M+S is calculated
Our industry’s standards are a little complex, so let’s simplify it a bit: for the M+S rating, 25 percent of a tire’s tread area has to be taken up by grooves to allow the tire to eject mud and snow, and always have a clear section of tire to dig in as the wheel turns.

I should have said, no performance spec.
 
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