this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2026
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[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Battery weight isn’t as much a deal as you think it is. It can actually be beneficial. For example, instead of the weight being in the front of the car, you can have a lighter motor and have all that weight in between all four wheels. It really does wonders for winter traction.

[–] innermachine@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It does wonders to increase ur inertia so u can't stop as well in snow too, and makes it harder to change direction. I live in a snowy mountain range and my 2900 lb shit box runs circles around the Tesla's and big trucks and suvs around here lol. Weight is the enemy of range, speed, efficiency, and gobbles up tires. I'm not saying the weight is an end all be all to things, but it is imo one of the major hurdles left to make EVs so much more competitive than they are. I mean shit a mid 90s geo metro is about as efficient as a brand new Prius. Why? Weight. Once evs can be produced in the 3k lb range they won't need as much battery for a 300 mile range, or the heavy EVs will have some fucking crazy 800 mile range. THAT is what will knock ice out of the park and get them all replaced. The next big leap in battery tech will about kill gass cars, and only ice left on the road will likely be diesel 18 wheelers. But what do I know? I just work on these things every day.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Honestly the only point you have is tires and not for the reason you think. No matter how stiff the rubber, it’s still flexible. So when you accelerate hard, which everyone with an EV does because it’s incredibly fun and we can’t help ourselves, the rubber will in the center of the tire and the rubber outside in the tread deform and go out of sync. It causes that tread the stress and bite harder, wearing much faster. It’s much more damaging to the tire than the weight difference from an ICEr.

There are 2 solutions to this: 1, implement a reduced acceleration rate from stop programmatically. Simple to do but it takes away a selling point on the car so you might introduce that as a “tire saving mode.” 2, self discipline. That’s never going to happen.

Considering there’s really nothing to break or wear on these cars aside from tires and wipers, manufacturers aren’t in any hurry to fix the tire issue.

As for reduced weight vehicles, look into the aptera. They are attacking this problem like you suggested, and the vehicle is so light and efficient solar panels become useful.