The EV Tire Business: Where the Opportunity Sits for Tire Retailers

EVs bring a tire shop more tire work per car than gas vehicles do. Today, most EV owners take that work to a dealer, because most EVs are still young. That changes as the cars age and change hands. The shop that measures every tire at every visit is then positioned to sell the next set.

Is the EV tire market still growing now that new EV sales have slowed?

Replacement demand keeps growing, because it follows the EVs already on the road. New EV sales fell after the federal tax credit ended on September 30, 2025. Cox Automotive counted 20.5% fewer sold in the second quarter of 2026 than a year earlier. Yet Experian counted 5.5 million EVs in operation in the third quarter of 2025, about 1.9% of vehicles on US roads.

The timing matters more than the dip. An EV usually needs its first replacement set about two and a half years after sale, as our analysis of EV tire wear shows. The two biggest EV sales years on record, 2024 and 2025, each added about 1.3 million cars. Their first sets come due between mid-2026 and mid-2028. Used EV sales, up 35% in 2025 by Cox’s count, add second owners on top.

Why do tires lead EV service visits?

Tires lead EV service because an EV has no oil to change. That leaves tire rotation as the most frequent job on its schedule. In Cox Automotive’s 2023 service study, tire work topped the list of what EV owners paid for out of pocket. Gas-car owners put the oil change first. EV owners also made more visits, 2.6 a year against 2.3.

We checked the schedules that four EV makers publish. Each one sets a rotation interval, and none lists an oil change.

Rotation intervals from each maker’s owner’s manual or EV maintenance page, checked September 2026. Rotations a year use the 11,880 miles that iSeeCars found EVs average in 2026.

At the mileage EVs average, every schedule calls for at least one rotation a year, and Tesla’s calls for nearly two. That visit replaces the oil change as the reason an EV comes back, and on a heavier car it counts for more. William Estupinan, vice president of technical service at GITI Tire USA, makes the same point:

As [vehicles become] smarter and heavier, the maintenance becomes even more important than ever before.

Where do EV owners get their tires serviced today?

For now, mostly at the dealer. Independent tire dealers sold 67% of US replacement passenger and light truck tires in 2025, according to Modern Tire Dealer. In Cox Automotive’s 2026 Fixed Operations and Ownership Study, EV owners took 67% of their service visits to a dealer. Gas-car owners took 28%.

Two things keep EV owners there. The cars are young. Battery EVs on US roads averaged 3.7 years old in 2025, against 12.8 years for all light vehicles, according to S&P Global Mobility. Some brands also pay for the visit, as Hyundai does with free inspections and tire rotations on its EVs for 3 years or 36,000 miles.

That hold loosens once free maintenance ends or the car changes hands. The EVs that already reach the aftermarket come in for tires. In J.D. Power’s 2023 aftermarket service study, tire repair came up for 41% of EVs, against an industry average of 12%.

What changes when an EV comes in for tires?

Three things change in the bay: the lift, the puncture repair, and the replacement tire.

Tesla’s owner’s manual allows only its designated lift points, warns against lifting under the battery, and excludes damage from incorrect lifting from the warranty. Other EV makers publish their own points, so check them before the car goes up.

Punctures need more care. Many EVs carry an inflator kit and no spare, including the Chevrolet Equinox EV and the Hyundai Ioniq 5. Many EV tires, Tesla’s own designs among them, also have a layer of noise-reducing foam inside. The USTMA repair bulletin for foam tires says to remove the foam around the injury before the standard repair. Makers differ on whether it goes back in, so follow their bulletin.

The replacement must match the sidewall: load index, speed rating and any automaker mark, such as Tesla’s T0, T1 or T2.

Estupinan sees most tire failures start in service:

In our experience, most of the [tires] that we receive from the market are related to service more than related to manufacturing.

The conditions he names first are under-inflation, road hazards, irregular wear, and lack of rotation. A technician can spot most of them during a rotation, while the wheels are off.

To watch the full interview with William, check it out here.

How does the rotation visit turn into a tire sale?

Measure every tire at every rotation, across the full tread width, and keep the readings by wheel position. Depending on the brand, an EV gets three or four rotations by 30,000 miles. More than half of the EV owners Consumer Reports surveyed in 2026 had replaced their tires before then. By the third visit, the readings show which tires are wearing fastest and roughly when the set will come due.

Drivers rarely see it coming. J.D. Power found in 2024 that EV owners expected their tires to wear like a gas car’s. When Anyline measured US tires in the field during National Tire Safety Week 2026, 1 in 7 was unsafe. A shop that shows the numbers early turns a surprise into a planned purchase, and the sale stays with the shop that measured the tires.

Where TireBuddy fits in an EV tire visit

TireBuddy is Anyline’s AI-powered tire inspection solution for phones and tablets. It measures tread depth from the camera image with precision down to 0.5 mm. It also reads the size and DOT code from the sidewall, with no extra hardware.

A tread depth scanner for every rotation

At each rotation, the TireBuddy report shows outer, center and inner tread depth for each tire, so uneven wear shows up as a gap between zones. Each report is saved against the car’s VIN or license plate, and the driver gets a copy by email or SMS.

In the app or in your shop software

The TireBuddy App works without integration, and the TireBuddy ToolKit adds the same readings to the software your shop already runs. Discount Tire, which runs almost 1,100 US stores, moved its tire inspections from pen and paper to mobile devices, with Anyline reading the DOT code from the sidewall. Anyline passed 100 million digital tire inspections worldwide in 2025, and its technology is also trusted by Michelin, Continental, and NAPA.

What stays with the technician

TireBuddy measures and records. A trained technician still judges the cause of uneven wear, whether a puncture can be repaired, and any damage a depth reading cannot show.

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