If you want to upgrade your vehicle, one of the best ways to do so is by decreasing its overall weight. Heavy vehicles are much more cumbersome and prone to being more difficult to push to their limits.
Since electric vehicles are far heavier than your standard gas car, this issue becomes worse for them. Due to the fact that you can’t remove much of the weight from EVs, many owners of these cars turn toward the wheels for weight reduction. If you aren’t sure what the potential benefits of adding lightweight wheels to your EV are, read on. We’re here to show you.
Speed and Acceleration
One thing that most people are already aware of is that heavier cars won’t move as fast as lighter ones. In order to compensate for this, most manufacturers will put in stronger motors that’ll help increase the vehicle’s potential speed by other means.
However, when compared head to head, heavier cars with similar motors to lighter ones won’t be able to accelerate or move as fast. Fortunately, installing lighter wheels will help make heavier cars like EVs light enough to speed up quicker.
Better Maneuverability
Another benefit of adding lightweight wheels to an EV is that it’ll improve maneuverability. Even though you won’t be tearing up the streets in your vehicle, having improved handling will help with everyday driving. With less weight, changing lanes or avoiding potential accidents will be much easier for the driver.
Potential Range
The main reason EV owners take an interest in lighter wheels is that they can potentially help increase their vehicle’s range. The distance a car can go before running out of power is significant for EVs since they take longer to charge than a gas car takes to fill up at the pump.
That means investing in lightweight EV wheels will save you a decent chunk of time on your longer trips. While lighter wheels won’t change the performance of your EV, they’ll make it light enough to help it consume less energy when moving. Of course, this still isn’t guaranteed, but many people make the change for this very reason.
Unsprung Weight Reduction
Finally, focusing on weight reduction for your wheels is beneficial because it’s unsprung weight. What that means is that this weight doesn’t push down on your vehicle’s suspension since it sits between your suspension system and the road. While that might not seem very relevant on the surface, it’s a massive benefit in terms of weight reduction.
Every pound removed from unsprung weight equals about two or three pounds of sprung weight. That means you’d have to take more weight from the body of your car to achieve the same results as removing a specific amount of weight from your wheels. This also means all the previous benefits are easier to achieve by focusing on the weight of your wheels instead of any other part of your EV.