Electric cars’ tyres are wearing sooner

Price differences between electric and internal combustion engine (ICE) company car tyres are persisting, new data from epyx shows.

In September 2023 – the average price of an ICE tyre was £168 while an electric equivalent was 32% more at £222. By August this year, the ICE tyre had risen to £187 while the electric tyre was £246 – still a difference of 32%.

During the intervening months, the variance between the two has usually been in the 32-35% range, although at some points has fallen as low as 29% and risen as high as 40%.

Additionally, the epyx data shows the average days until the first tyre change for an electric car is 336 while the average mileage when this occurs is 14,352. This compares to 383 days and 18,333 miles for ICE.

These statistics are taken from epyx’s 1link Service Network platform, used by operators totalling almost five million cars and vans to manage their service, maintenance and repair needs. In total, 469,574 tyre lines were invoiced through the system in 2024.

Tim Meadows (right),  CCO at epyx, said, “There has been commentary in the fleet sector hoping the difference between ICE and electric car tyres would start to close over time, especially as electrification has progressed, but there’s no sign of that happening yet in our data. “Also, we are seeing electric car tyres being replaced more often. This is probably primarily due to the additional weight of these vehicles but also many of these models have higher performance than ICE equivalents, and that could be a factor, too.