My tire psi for my EV is set for 36 psi but most dealerships and people keep them at 40 psi. Would this have anything to do with gas mileage and efficiency?
I would think that inflating your tires more would be more efficient but also cause more wear because there’s greater forces on the rubber. But too little inflation would cause them to hit every rock and bang it up more.
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So I’m gonna talk about tires for cycling, while not exactly comparable to car tires there’s a lot that can be learned from them as reducing rolling resistance is even more essential for going fast on a bike. For a long time it was thought that a road bike tire should be as skinny and high pressure as possible in order to reduce rolling resistance. While this is true, it only remains true when looking at a tire rolling on a very smooth surface. Track cyclists still use very skinny tires at pressures that would be way too high on the road, <20mm tires at well over 100psi. 23mm tires at ~90-100psi have been the norm for road bikes for a while, but recently tires have been getting slightly wider and running at lower psi. Over rough pavement the smoother ride of a softer tire can actually roll better than the harder one. So it’s a trade off, higher psi *can* improve efficiency, but only up to a point where other downsides start to creep in. Apparently having your car tires way overinflated can eventually lead to some wayward handling and will give a harsher ride.
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