With the increasing number of electric vehicle roll-outs from manufacturers, tire companies are catering to suit with dedicated rubber. In the case of Hankook, it has announced it is supplying Porsche’s Taycan EV with its Ventus S1 evo 3, which it says has been specially developed for the needs of electric vehicles.
Hankook noted that the tread pattern of the Ventus S1 evo 3 was adapted for Porsche in such a way as to reduce tire noises by around 3dB to ensure the lack of powertrain noise did not lead to an increase in perceived interior tire noise.
The company also said that to meet the heavy demands of the high performance EV, the tire has a reinforced bead with so-called bead-packing technology, as well as high lateral stiffness for precise handling even at high speeds.
“With the tire development for the Porsche Taycan, our development team has moved into completely new dimensions and we are proud of the result. For the original equipment engineers, such a development project represents a special challenge – because solving the conflict of objectives for optimizing the various performance criteria in an e-vehicle like this high-performance sports car requires the highest level of expertise and the latest technologies”, explained Klaus Krause, head of the European research and development center at Hankook.
The company added that its developers have also discovered an optimally balanced vulcanization process for the tire compound that ensures the right balance of temperature, longevity and pressure.
As a result, it said the Taycan’s tires achieve 30% greater durability compared with a standard tread compound. Abrasion resistance has also been improved by 5% compared to the conventional model and rolling resistance by 13% overall.
