Getting a quiet, comfortable ride with EV tires

The EV era is flourishing. The soft, quiet hum of an electric vehicle cruising down the street is becoming a familiar sound in towns and cities around the world. Unlike their internal combustion engine (ICE) relatives, EVs need no gas-powered noisy engine to get where they are going. In fact, they are so quiet that EV automakers have in fact added in the hum for safety reasons to ensure that pedestrians can hear an electric car approaching.

The relatively silent ways of an EV actually present a noise problem within the vehicle too. In the absence of the loud powertrain and engine of an ICE vehicle, the noise generated by the tires for an electric car is much more dominant in the cabin. Part of that tire noise depends on the roads, with some street surfaces being noisier than others. But a good portion of it also has to do with the tires and whether they have been engineered for noise reduction.

Tire manufacturers like Michelin have heard the call and are applying their decades of developing noise-reducing technologies to the special noise profile of the electric vehicle. Let’s take a closer look at the science of tire noise to better understand what type of tires for electric cars can deliver a quiet, comfortable ride.

Several components contribute to noise levels in a vehicle cabin. In gas-powered vehicles, the engine, the powertrain and the exhaust system are some of the louder elements. In both electric vehicles and ICE cars, tire noise is the other main source of sound, especially at higher speeds.

Sound is a vibration of a medium, the most common one being the air around us and the sound waves generated by a multitude of vibrational sources. In the case of tires, the sound or tire noise they make is simply what happens when some stimulus is applied to a volume of compressed air inside a deformable membrane, like what happens when you beat on a drum. Drive down the road on a tire, and what you hear is the sound of the road “beating” on the tire and vibrating the air inside to produce sounds.

These sounds travel through the car’s axle and reach the vehicle interior as cavity noise, an irritating audible buzz that can interfere with a driver’s concentration or create an unpleasant driving experience. Cavity noise poses a challenge to tire manufacturers to develop technologies that reduce tire noise and ensure a quiet comfortable ride, both for electric vehicles as well as their gas-powered cousins.

Tire noise is not just an issue for drivers and their passengers. External noises from cars, and tires in particular, impact urban life and are considered noise pollution. The European Union uses tire labeling, which includes a rating for external pass-by noise, as part of its efforts to reduce noise pollution. While there is no nationwide tire regulation in the US, the European E mark you see on many tires sold here is an indication of lower noise levels.

Drive in an electric vehicle and the whole noise profile of the driving experience changes. In an ICE vehicle, tire noise essentially competes with the noisier engine. In an EV, tire noise is more noticeable. However, it is not that the tires actually make more noise in an electric car, but rather that we perceive the tires as being noisier than in the louder noise profile of a gas-powered vehicle. Moreover, electric vehicles are heavier with stiffer suspension, which impacts and amplifies how road and tire noise are transmitted to the cabin.

So what are tire manufacturers like Michelin doing to address the more noticeable tire noise in an EV driving experience? As a premium tire producer for many luxury and upscale automakers for decades now, Michelin has long been perfecting its tires to deliver a quiet, luxurious drive. One of its key developments for making tires quieter is Michelin Acoustic Technology (MAT), sound-dampening materials that reduce irritating sounds caused by tires meeting the road.

MAT relies on a custom-designed polyurethane foam ring inside the tire, which reduces vibrations caused by the road and in turn, lowers interior cabin noise by as much as 20%¹. The foam ring basically muffles noise resonance so that the driver and passengers can more easily use hand-free communication devices or stay alert with less driver fatigue on longer drives. MAT even dampens interior noise when driving on changing road conditions.

Besides inner tire foam, Michelin has also developed advanced approaches to fine-tuning tire treads on both its standard tires and EV-specific tires. Michelin uses high-tech PIANO Noise Reduction Tuning to design a tread with blocks and angles that cancel out "harmonic" road noise and create the ideal amplitude for the contact patch to deliver a quieter ride.

Specially engineered tread compounds also play a role in reducing tire noise, as do Michelin’s proprietary design rules for optimizing the shape, size and positioning of tread blocks. At first glance, the blocks on a Michelin tire might look random, but in fact, their placement has been carefully calculated to create patterns that reduce noise as much as possible.

Breakthroughs in noise prediction tools and computer and AI technologies are helping further bring down tire noise to unprecedented low levels. But since the sound of tires cannot entirely be eliminated, Michelin has also found ways to make the remaining residual tire noise less irritating. Tread blocks can be balanced out to vary the sounds they make, just like in music where hearing a few different notes in succession is more pleasant than the drone of hearing one single piano key played over and over.

Michelin has long been a leader in reducing tire noise, giving EV owners the confidence that Michelin tires have been engineered to deliver a quiet, luxurious ride. In this era of the electric vehicle, Michelin has also been focusing on a few tire families to create an even quieter tire for EV-specific applications.

The Michelin Primacy MXM4 T1 tire offers the quietest ride among competitors¹ so that EV owners and their passengers hear just what they want to hear. The Primacy tire line is a great choice among premium EV carmakers as original equipment (OE) tires for electric cars. Primacy tires offer superior performance without the noise and also boast lower rolling resistance and improved range, one of the key concerns when driving an electric vehicle.

The Michelin Pilot Sport EV tire is another premium EV-specific tire to consider if you are looking for replacement tires that are engineered for a quiet and comfortable ride. The Pilot Sport EV has been optimized for the special profile of electric cars, featuring a quiet tread design and Michelin’s state-of-the-art acoustic foam technology for sound dampening. Plus, the Pilot Sport EV also scores high marks in low rolling resistance, helping to extend the range of your electric vehicle to get you farther on a single charge.

There are, in fact, other ways to reduce the noise profile of an electric vehicle so that EV owners and passengers can enjoy the peace and quiet of their more silent mode of transportation. EV carmakers are using sound-absorbing materials throughout an electric car, such as thicker noise-reducing glass, quieter engines with better sound-proofing in the cabin, and less noisy, softer suspensions with reduced wheel sizes for narrower tires.

Beyond choosing EV-specific tires optimized for a quiet ride, several simple tire maintenance routines can help EV owners keep tire noise levels down. Rotating tires on an occasional basis and having tires aligned keeps them in the best operating condition and also reduces noise. Even keeping tires for electric vehicles at the recommended tire pressure will ensure that they are delivering the quiet ride they were designed for.

When choosing replacement tires or looking for EV-specific tires, it is also important to understand that no tire can do it all. EV owners who prioritize a quiet ride will have the added benefit of better range through lower rolling resistance, but with that advantage can comes less grip and durability. Grip, wear, efficiency and noise — balancing all these factors and limiting compromises in a tire design is a challenge, but Michelin’s decades of experience have positioned it to produce vehicle tires that meet the needs of a wide array of EVs and EV owner priorities, including tires that deliver the ultimate in a quiet ride.

For more facts and information about tires for electric cars, visit our FAQ page or our EV Tires page with links to in-depth articles about tires and EVs. Use the Tire Selector module here below to start shopping for the right tire for your vehicle or visit the Shop EV Tires page for an overview of Michelin’s EV-Ready tires.

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