Twice round the world

21 April 2023

Regular blog readers will know that I’ve been following the experiences of Genquip Groundhog’s MD Peter Beach with his electric vehicle over the past two years. 

It’s been a process of gradual disillusion, from initial excitement about going green, to eventually deciding that the infrastructure is not yet on an adequate scale for higher-mileage drivers to avoid anxiety about finding convenient, reliable and cost-effective charging facilities. 

Hopefully the government’s ongoing investments towards upgrading the charging network will improve the situation, but until then Peter has decided to swap his Jaguar I-Pace for a petrol car. 

Mind you, there is apparently a waiting list of several months because of ongoing supply chain disruptions, so there may be more EV experiences to report on before then. 

However, there have been some positives on the electric journey, from the environmental benefits to the vehicle’s astonishing acceleration. 

And here’s another. 

“I took the car to Kwik Fit the other day to have four new tyres fitted,” says Peter. “They replaced the originals that had done an astonishing 53,658 miles!” 

That’s more than twice round the world. 

“And they still had some usable tread left. Normally you would expect to replace tyres after, say, 20,000 miles and I’m doing the same type of driving as I always have, mainly on motorways.” 

Peter also tells me that the car’s brake pads are still the originals with a fair amount of life in them yet. 

So to ask the obvious question: Is this mileage figure some kind of record? Do you know of anyone who has done more miles in an EV on one set of tyres? If so, email me here. 

● There’s been some discussion about tyre wear on EVs as mentioned earlier on the blog.