Electric car MOT tyre failure is 40 per cent higher than for petrol vehicles
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Reasons not to buy an EV – Part 98
Electric vehicles (EVs) have a 40 per cent higher MOT tyre failure rate than petrol cars, new analysis has revealed.
The greater average weight of EVs compared with other vehicles is responsible for the higher rate, according to a report from the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI).
It also found that the overall MOT failure rate for newer EVs from all causes is marginally greater than for petrol vehicles.
The report, which looked at 2021 data, is the latest to highlight the impact electric vehicles are having due to their weight.
Last month, the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) warned that EVs could exacerbate the pothole crisis on residential roads, while new guidance has also recently been drawn up to ensure that car parks can cope with the weight of increased EV use.
The IMI said that its research found EVs failed “more on dangerous items” than petrol vehicles, picking out tyres as the main culprit.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/electric-car-mot-tyre-failure-higher/
There has been a lot tosh put out by the EV lobby to convince us that running costs are lower for electric cars.
On my diesel, by far the biggest maintenance cost is on tyres. We already know that wear on tyres and brakes is greater for EVs, due to their weight. This latest report adds to the evidence.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Hardly surprising given that EVs are heavier than the much more practical petrol and diesel vehicles.
All sorts of hype about “lower maintenance costs” for EVs, but tyres and brake pads / discs are by far the most common maintenance costs and no vehicles are exempt from these.
>>electric car MOT tyre failure
“Hardly surprising given that EVs are heavier”
Tires failing MOT is caused by driver not looking at his tires before taking it in.
Pilot error. It’s not the vehicle’s fault. Cars don’t have guilt.
Do Ev drivers check less?
Hello all
When I was working I had a garage and MOT station for 25 years. My most regular failure on MOTs of cars just presented for test (rather than vehicles they we had looked after and serviced)was tyres all day long.
Present company accepted very few people look at cars AT ALL and just expect them to go from one year to the next.
On numerous occasions (that I can remember ) cars would just scrape through the test with an advisory notice for barely legal tyres and a recommendation to replace them only to turn up the following year with the same tyres that by then were to say the least completely F@*cked and needless to say dangerous, people would regularly at this point express surprise and then buy the cheapest budget tyre(s) they could get away with, (even on newish premium brands)
As an aside my straw poll of MOT’s over a long period of time and based on peoples desperation to get a test was that well in excess of 50% of cars on the road at any particular time would have NO MOT, many having run out months before and only acted on when someone had to get road tax.
Thankfully I’m out of it all now.
There used to be a time that MoT stations would simply say “come back when you have replaced the failed tyres” (either the same or next day) rather than an outright fail and make a new appointment many days later.
EVs have only 2 advantages over IC ones, better acceleration and quiet running.They are not “Green” and the additional disadvantages include catastrophic fires. Insurers and carpark firms will be charging for higher risks than IC vehicles.
EVs typify the gross inferiority of substitutes adopted in the falsehood of “Fighting climate change”: a bogus concept already, even before its purported prophylaxis and remedies.
Extra acceleration could also accelerate tyre wear.
If I wanted “extra acceleration”, I would buy a better ICE with a manual transmission. Manual transmissions don’t even exist for electric cars, not even the hybrids.
“quiet running” is not necessarily safer and can be dangerous because you cannot hear vehicles approaching from around corners
CORRECT.
Better acceleration?
My somewhat elderly Mercedes diesel estate automatic has more than enough torque easily to squeal its tyres in the dry on the throttle setting off and changing up if I boot it, claims 0-60 in around 6.5 seconds, how much acceleration do you need?
Plus, as the Executive model, it’s whisper quiet too.
Long ago I had a chipped BMW Alpina, now that thing really could accelerate!
Lovely cars the Alpinas.
From a time when German engineering was the best! unlike the rubbish produced nowadays.
Fully agreed. is your Merc.the celebrated W123?
Anyone choosing an EV should/will be as happy as the motor
disappoints.
No, later model, a W211.
261 BHP, 457 lb ft torque makes for effortless overtaking.
Any more than that is just going to chew the tyres up.
Apart from very occasionaly wanting to avoid danger rapid acceleration, plus rapid braking, leads to higher fuel consumption (also true for EVs) and presumably rapid acceleration increases wear on the engine as you don’t have time to change up through the gears fast enough and the revs go very high.
Indeed Matt.
In my youth when I rode high performance motorcycles on twisty roads I used to spend more on tyres than I did on petrol!
Mr Weazle, my moto mechanic told me I wasn’t riding my BMW right: there was more wear on the bottom than on the sides.
“how much acceleration do you need?” Modern trains accelerate quicker than ever. Great for the timetable, but terrible for the queasy passengers. Quite dangerous if you’re standing.
Quiet running is a disadvantage for certain groups pedestrians, horse riders and dare I say cyclists.
Whispering Death coming from behind may not be a good thing
Cyclists are already a menace to everything else due to lack of any chance of hearing them, not to mention those without lights, ignoring red traffic lights, one-way streets and riding on pavements and of course no insurance – the same goes for E-scooters.
It’s a myth that electric cars are quieter than modern ICE cars. Once over 20 mph there is little difference.
‘quiet running’
Myth.
Below 20 mph, they can be pretty quiet, though most make some sound. Above 20 mph, they sound like any other car, the noise coming from the tires and wind.
Makes them lethal in supermarket car parks!
EVS……the gift that keeps on giving.
…or the excuse that keeps on taking.
A Tesla Model Y, has a power to weight ratio of 0.19 w/grm. cw a series 5 BMW at 0.076 w/g This model also weighs 2,000kg cw BMW 5 series at 1945kg We should be looking at more efficient ICE engines of which the most elegant is from Berkley Labs. Follow this with https://newatlas.com/automotive/innengine-one-stroke-engine-design/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=8260ca9476-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_07_12_08_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-8260ca9476-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D#gallery:5&itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body and https://newatlas.com/automotive/inside-out-wankel/#:~:text=We%20have%20the%20opposite%2C%20a%20peanut-shaped%20rotor%20in,high%20compression%2C%20just%20by%20making%20the%20chamber%20smaller. There is another guy who I cannot find in my archives who use one electric motor per valve which on a V12 translates to 36 motors!!!!!!!
Not sure which model BMW 5 series you are looking at , but most of them are around 1400 to 1500 KG
https://cararac.com/dimensions/bmw/5-series.html
Brian, you have to compare like with like. A rocket-propelled ‘car’ would probably do better. But so what. If my ICE car can get me from A to B at a cost and time I’m satisfied with it really doesn’t matter what an EV could do it in. Or a rocket car.
“Reasons not to buy an EV – part 98” Lets simplify this, Reasons to buy an EV – Part 1: There aren’t any!
Except Virtue Signalling, of course!
To placate the brainwashed children/grandchildren.
The German TUV also found suspension, steering and brake failures. The brakes is interesting as it can be from lack of use on vehicles with regenerative braking, so that when tested they have glazed and lack power.
EVs are now evidently set to ruin Messrs VW, now very troubled.
Each year I wonder if my 33 year old Fiat will pass the MOT. But each year it goes through without trouble. There’s often an “Advisory”, but nothing that isn’t expected for an old banger. The previous one failed twice in 10 years – a flexible brake hose one year, and a fixed brake pipe a couple of years later. But (unlike every modern vehicle) I don’t have to worry about a myriad of electronic failures, since it doesn’t have any – apart from electronic ignition. But that’s no concern as I keep a spare (points) distributor under the seat, which I can swap over in minutes.
I rather suspect a lot of those “advisories” are because they _want_ to find something to complain about rather than an actual problem.
Anything more than tyres, brakes, steering, exhaust (noise), suspension and lights have zero effect on actual safety but do give jobsworths lots of opportunities to find something to complain about.
I must defend privately run MOT stations here,
I am not suggesting that there are NO dodgy MOT stations but in my experience if people were not happy with the service provided they would not return. We were busy all the time because I had a policy of explaining to people why the outcome of a test was so.
Dont get me started on the fast fits though.
There is a difference between independent garages with authorisation to issue the equivalent of MOT certificates and the “testing centres” run directly by the state. The former would not do an outright fail, but would simply suspend handing over the certificate until the issue was fixed.
>>I must defend privately run MOT stations here,
I’ve been going to the same garage / testing station for decades, and they know me well. They won’t deliberately look for something to fail, because they know I will do the work, not them! And once they’ve completed the inspection, I also ask to see underneath when it’s on the ramp, as I don’t have a pit at home, and crawling underneath is getting hard at my age. They usually point out the front bumper (fender) is loose on one side (it was last year, and the year before!), but I’m not going to strip it off to repair the brackets as that’s not an actual failure.
In some countries, the _only_ places for the equivalent of MOT tests are state-run. They are NOT independent garages. If they were actually independent, they would exercise some common sense rather than outright fail and make new appointment a long time in the future.
>>I’ve been going to the same garage / testing station for decades
With some effort, I found that MOT is a government mandated vehicle inspection. Long standing in UK. I guess that’s why people use the acronym without explaining what it means.
The US parallel would be periodic state vehicle inspections. Which most states have done away with, as a useless government intrusion into citizens lives.
Shame that doesn’t happen in more countries.
It wouldn’t be as bad in Europe (it is not only the UK) if those mandatory government inspections restricted themselves to the things that actually affect roadworthiness, but they keep inventing new things to fail vehicles for.
In most countries, those inspections are _every_ year, but in Germany it is every two years.
>>The US parallel would be periodic state vehicle inspections. Which most states have done away with, as a useless government intrusion into citizens lives.
“but they keep inventing new things to fail vehicles for”
I can’t prove it, but I think my state killed it for that reason. Feds couldn’t impose emissions tests if there were no state inspections.
The French CT (=MOT) is every two years. The thing that is noticeable is the number of vehicles driving with only one working headlight. When I drive in the UK (which has a yearly MOT) I rarely see any.
At least one headlight is better than none at all. It still shocks me how many people are too lazy to turn the switch past parking lights to dipped headlights.
The problem with newer vehicles is how difficult it is to actually change a headlight bulb yourself. Amazing how much you have to remove, even if you have the “special tool”.
>>vehicles driving with only one working headlight
Gamecock – it’s actually been a DoE test for decades (Department of Environment) rather than Ministry of Transport test, but people hold to the old words. Over here in France it’s a Controle Technique, which for private cars is every two years. IIRC, in the States it’s often every 3 months, which is probably excessive.
How many cars fail it, and were those failures life-threatening? Tyre failures can be pretty dangerous, as can steering or brake failures. Obviously, the users are not checking enough or not competent to, otherwise you’d get no failures.
I regard these tests as helpful, since they test things I can’t put figures on, such as performance of shock-absorbers. At times they’ve caught things that could have been nasty, such as rusted suspension-points that needed welding, but not visible without the pit. My last Controle Technique showed a rubber boot failure on one CV joint, where I didn’t expect that because it was fairly new (about 4000km). Kind of hard to see in normal situations.
I think the tests are a necessary intervention from the State, since the roads are safer as a result. Also gets those vehicles belching black smoke off the roads, at least mostly.
“I think the tests are a necessary intervention from the State, since the roads are safer as a result.”
[citation needed]
You assume so. But mechanical causes of accidents are rare. Inspections just shuffle the chairs on the Titanic. And make garages very, very happy.
That’s the theory, but look at the number of things added over the years that do NOT affect safety, yet the vehicle can fail because all the boxes are not ticked.
>>intervention from the State, since the roads are safer
Simon, is it still two months to fix the CT failure? In theory, you are able to sell a vehicle in France with twenty six months of ‘MoT’.
There are some countries where if you sell the car the same day as it’s just passed valid equivalent of “MoT”, the new owner has to put the vehicle through the actual inspection again!
>>In theory, you are able to sell a vehicle in France with twenty six months of ‘MoT’.
Paul – yep, still 2 months grace to fix a failure. However, you can’t sell a car with a CT more than 6 months old except to a dealer, and the CT is dated from the failed test not the newer passed one. If you get the new CT before the old one expires, it dates from then rather than the expiry date of the new test. Thus you can only get 24 months of test, and less if it fails first time through.
My CT guy is very thorough, and notes stuff needing fixing even if it doesn’t fail. Some others aren’t, though.
The last CT I had before leaving France, the guy used his own vehicle to record the emissions because my car was failing. I watched him do it!
This is an obvious item that should never have been included in “MoT” tests in the first place.
>>record the emissions
Correct on both points. MOT_test search explains.
I recall an Idaho test where the main thing was to see if headlights were pointing where they are supposed to. Modern auto headlights apparently don’t change.
MOT = Ministry Of Transport.
Which hasn’t even been called that for many years.
Why would I want to pay a higher price to make my life more difficult?
1000 lorries filled green paint have arrived in Scunthorpe
to make Starmer’s green steel
As usual the taxpayer will pay for the extra costs of “green steel”
As I scan Twitter for info I am confronted by hundreds of spiteful hatey tweets from antifa to the people of Scunthorpe
Why is that ? Cos a few top antifa accounts took video of 60 Stop The Boat demonstrators in Scarborough and falsely labelled it as “Fascists in Scunthorpe”
In 1650 iron was made by cutting down the forests of England
2028 Steel is going to be made by chopping down the forests of America to fuel Drax Power station to make the electricity to power the furnaces in Scunthorpe
cos wind/solar are too flip floppy
Is that progress ?
It’s interesting that EV failure rate is slightly higher than ICE.
The number of EVs over 10 years old must be very small. The life expectancy of a car in the UK is about 13 years. I imagine most ELFs are insurance write offs and MOT failures after 15+
“It’s interesting that EV failure rate is slightly higher than ICE.”
I assume it relates to the personality of EV buyers.
“exacerbate the pothole crisis on residential roads”, it seems that the depth of the AIA analyis was to look out the front door at home and miss the state of the majority of the A roads, B roads, Motorways and fail to state our roads are in the worst state in 75 years.