# EV tires

Topic radar · 633 documents · 2021-01-01–2026-11-11 · updated 2026-10-31

Canonical: https://slate.greyb.com/radar/ev-tires/innovations

## In one minute

### An EV tire has to carry more load, roll more freely and last longer, and one rubber cannot do all three
Rolling resistance is energy lost as the tread deforms. The rubber flexes under load, and part of that work goes off as heat instead of coming back. A compound that dissipates less energy per cycle is the direct route to range, and it is also a compound with less resistance to tearing and abrasion. A Mahindra engineering account names cut and chip as one of the most frequent and troublesome failures in ultra-low rolling resistance development [1]. A second study sets out the whole requirement stack: a heavier car wants a stiffer, higher-pressure construction, range wants low hysteresis, grip wants softness, and wear wants toughness [2].

That conflict is the engineering problem. With few exceptions the field's answer is relocation. The problem moves onto groove proportion, onto a stiffness gradient inside the tread, onto the wheel, onto the chassis controller, or onto a simulation that predicts wear instead of measuring it.

The work splits by what it produces. The inventions are tread structures and hardware, such as the groove geometry claimed for a new-energy-vehicle tire [3]. The measured efficiency and wear trade-offs sit in published research, such as the bridged silica network that lowered hysteresis and abrasion loss at the same time [4].

1. [10.4271/2024-28-0175](https://doi.org/10.4271/2024-28-0175)
2. [10.4271/2026-26-0351](https://doi.org/10.4271/2026-26-0351)
3. [CN222987887U](/?paper=CN222987887U&utm_source=radar&utm_medium=dashboard)
4. [10.1021/acsapm.5c00189](https://doi.org/10.1021/acsapm.5c00189)

### The dedicated EV tire wins the original fitment and struggles on the replacement shelf
Every EV-specific tire with a public story was built with a carmaker in the room. Kenda developed the Klever S/T around Slate's electric pickup, pairing a low rolling resistance design with reinforced construction for the truck's weight and torque, and it fits from the start of production in November 2026. Continental's EcoContact 7 S went through Volvo approval for the EX60 in a staggered 20-inch fitment, with dimples moulded into the sidewall to cut air turbulence behind the tire. Nexen began supplying BYD for export models in June 2026.


### The filing effort sits with Chinese and Taiwanese tire firms, and it is aimed at the mechanical parts of the tire
Of 238 patents on EV tires, 196 are Chinese filings, and the top of the list is Zhongce with 24, Qingdao Doublestar 13, Jiangsu Enbang 12, Kenda 11, Shandong Huasheng 8 and Linglong 7. Michelin holds 3, Pirelli and Sumitomo 2 each, and Continental 1.


### The compound results that move both properties at once come from materials programmes outside the tire makers
A Korea University and Hankook collaboration built an open silica network by bridging particles with a silane-terminated polybutadiene. Tan delta at 60 °C, the lab stand-in for rolling resistance, fell about 30 percent, and abrasion resistance improved in the same compound. Both moving the right way is the part worth pausing on, because the simple trade-off says one should pay for the other. The mechanism is dispersion: the bridges keep silica aggregates apart, so less energy is lost to particles rubbing against each other, and the same network holds the rubber together under shear.


### The EV and premium mix is what separates one tire maker's quarter from another's
Hankook reported record quarterly tire revenue of 2.81 trillion won in the third quarter of 2026, and beat expectations on operating profit by raising the share of high-priced products. Over the same quarter Nexen's revenue rose 4.4 percent and its operating profit fell 61.1 percent.


### The patent lead is real, and it has not reached the fitments that carry the margin
Chinese brands passed half of China's passenger-car original fitment in 2026, at 53 percent against 47 percent for foreign brands, with Linglong at 21.8 million tires supplied. That is the volume end of the market, and it is where the filing activity sits.


### Tread design has settled on one skeleton, and the recent claims are proportions
The layout is now conventional across the filings: a stiff central rib, longitudinal grooves either side of it, shoulder blocks cut by transverse grooves. What the newer documents claim is dimensional. A Shandong Huasheng and Hongsheng filing for a new-energy-vehicle tire fixes each longitudinal groove at 5 percent of the contact width, give or take one percent, and sets two depth ratios for the inner and outer groove pairs at 0.85 to 0.91 and 0.63 to 0.68. Aeolus takes the same architecture to electric buses and claims a vine-shaped oblique groove layout that spreads airflow sideways while also resisting uneven tread wear.


### No one selling into this market agrees how big it is
Five published estimates of the current market span a factor of seven.


## Overview


An EV tire has to lose little energy as it flexes and still resist tearing as it wears, and one rubber does poorly at both. A Mahindra engineering account names cut and chip as one of the most frequent and troublesome failures in ultra-low rolling resistance development. The field's answer, area after area, is to move the conflict off the compound. Groove proportion absorbs it in the tread, a stiffness gradient absorbs it within the tread, a resonator in the rim absorbs it in the wheel, a torque controller absorbs it in the chassis, and a wear model absorbs it on paper before a tire is built.


## What's new


This period: 29 new items — 5 continuing earlier stories, 5 from startups (Anyline, Radial Insights, Slate Auto); 0 repeats of earlier stories left out.


## Research

### Simulation now stands in for a road wear test nobody has run across competing patterns
Zhongce's 2026 sequence is the most complete single chain in the field: a steady-state rolling finite-element model that couples the slip ratio to the friction coefficient and adaptively adds side-slip samples where coverage is thin, so the wear assessment is stable enough to compare working conditions. Sibling filings in the same year turn it on design decisions. One screens tread modulus against the shoulder and groove-edge zones where river-like wear starts. One picks groove wall angles by balancing total friction work against edge wear. Two set belt angles and belt-layer parameters by inverting the measured wear pattern back to structure.


### The cavity tone and the pressure reading are both handled outside the tire now
Cavity resonance is the tonal boom an EV cabin hears because there is no engine to mask it, and the fix has moved into the wheel. Central Motor Wheel claims wheel resonators tuned to the first-order and to second- or higher-order air column modes at once. Hyundai and Kia claim a resonator formed in the wheel cap and coupled through an assembly hole into the cavity, targeting 200 to 300 Hz. A wheel part is bought once per vehicle and survives every tire change, so the recurring cost of a foam liner competes against a one-time part.


### Airless has shipped, and the designs on file still keep a trapped air chamber
The structural filings point at one weakness: a tire bonded to a rim and filled with air loses the vehicle when it loses pressure. Most designs answer with a barrier inside a pneumatic tire, a steel-wire layer, buffer pad, anti-stab layer or adhesive self-seal. Genuinely non-pneumatic designs are rare.


## Market

### The pitch has become range and life together, and only range carries a label
Michelin's Primacy 5 Energy claims a triple A rating for rolling resistance, wet grip and noise, up to 10 percent more electric range, and a life up to 40 percent longer than competitors in independent testing, on a compound it describes as functionalized elastomers with new resins.


### The chemistry that would justify the life claim is still outside the companies making the tires
The measured backing for that mechanism comes from a university collaboration and a national laboratory programme, neither of which sells tires at scale. Michelin's launch language names functionalized elastomers and a life claim up to 40 percent longer than competitors, on evidence the company has not published. Whether its shipping compound uses that mechanism, and what it costs per tire, is not disclosed in any source.


### Three jurisdictions have turned tire performance into a market-access question
California adopted the first US efficiency standard for replacement tires in August 2026, with a rolling resistance floor and a consumer rating, projected by the commission to save about $1 billion a year and cut roughly 2 million tonnes of CO2. Europe began enforcing ECE R117-03 in May 2026. India's draft BS-VII would bring brake and tire abrasion into emission rules from April 2029.


## Strategy

### The incumbents are putting their effort into measurement and rules while cutting the labs that file
Continental announced around 3,000 research and development job reductions worldwide by the end of 2026, targeting an R&D ratio below 10 percent by 2027. Reporting on the same programme put most of the cuts in R&D roles and tied them to electric-vehicle investment that had not returned as expected.


### The research half belongs to universities, and it is growing where the filers are thin
Of the 53 papers, 26 come from universities and 19 from authors with no recorded organisation. The results that move wear and rolling resistance in the same direction come from outside the tire industry's own labs: a Korea University and Hankook collaboration and a US Department of Energy programme, with the lab wear test that correlates to road wear coming from a third group.


### Car makers and machinery firms are taking the areas the tire makers left thin
Intelligence and Monitoring took 11 patents in the last twelve months against 3 news items, and the filers are mostly vehicle makers. Huawei claims blowout detection from per-motor speed with torque correction inside a tenth of a second. Hyundai and Kia claim tire-temperature prediction that limits slip and torque in drift driving. Audi claims heating tires with waste heat from a charging station, and Volta claims tread classification from cameras mounted at one.


### Volume is rising fast, and the newest growth is in announcements rather than in filings
Output by year runs 45 in 2021, 82 in 2022, 86 in 2023, 88 in 2024, 113 in 2025 and 183 by late October 2026. The most recent twelve months carried 190 documents against 99 in the year before.


## Areas

- Durability and Wear · 358 documents
- Range and Efficiency · 95 documents
- Intelligence and Monitoring · 84 documents
- Sustainability and Materials · 46 documents
- Noise and Comfort · 20 documents
- Structural Reinvention · 35 documents