If you’re thinking of buying a Tesla then you may be wondering whether the car will come with a spare tire, or whether you need to purchase one.
The answer is that Teslas don’t come with a spare tire, because you simply don’t need one!
While tire repair kits for Teslas are available, in most cases, repairs at service centers and Tesla Roadside Assistance will entirely remove the need for you to change or repair your tires yourself.
Why don’t Teslas have spare tires?
There are five reasons why Teslas don’t need spare tires:
- Spare tires are rarely used in any vehicle
- Spare tires take up valuable space
- Weight is at a premium in a Tesla
- Teslas have something called a TPMS sensor
- Tesla offers roadside assistance
Let’s look at each of these in more detail.
1. Spare tires are rarely used
It’s not just Teslas that don’t need spare tires. In the vast majority of cases – reportedly around 85% of the time – a vehicle’s spare tire remains unused for the entire life of the car.
This is incredibly wasteful, as a tire is being manufactured, taking up space inside the vehicle, adding weight to the car, which increases fuel consumption, then simply being thrown in the trash years later. For this reason, many manufacturers are moving away from including spare tires in their cars.
2. Spare tires take up valuable space
Aside from simply being wasteful, for Tesla, the issues of weight and space are particularly important.
The company prides itself on efficient use of space in its vehicles and promotes trunk space as a benefit of buying a Tesla. For example, the Model 3 features additional storage space under the hood.
Including a spare tire would take up a significant amount of space that could otherwise be used for storage.
3. Weight is at a premium in a Tesla
As electric vehicles need weighty batteries, Teslas are generally heavier than other cars. To compensate for this, Tesla tries to make the rest of the car as lightweight as possible. Adding an unnecessary spare tire would detract from this goal.
4. Teslas have a TPMS sensor
TPMS stands for Tire Pressure Monitoring System. This system monitors your tires and will alert you to potential problems with your tires at the earliest sign of trouble.
In many cases, this will give you time to reach a service center, removing the need to repair or change your tire at the side of the road.
5. Tesla offers roadside assistance
In the rare event that you do have a puncture in your Tesla, and you need to pull over, you can take advantage of Tesla’s Roadside Assistance Service.
Tesla offers this service 24 hours per day and it is completely free for any tesla that is still within its warranty period.
It’s possible to request roadside assistance from the Tesla app and user reviews suggest the service is fast, reliable, and effective.
The availability of roadside assistance is yet another reason why there is simply no need to change a Tesla tire yourself.
Tire Repair for Teslas
If you have a tire that needs repairing, you can either head to a Tesla Service Centre or a third-party repair shop.
Where possible, we recommend going to a Tesla Service Centre. This is because they are experts in Tesla tires, which are different from the tires on other road cars.
For example, Tesla tires contain noise-reducing foam. This means a quieter drive, which is great, but one downside is that some third-party repair shops may not be familiar with the technology.
Tesla Tire Repair Kits
As explained above, you are unlikely to ever need to repair a Tesla tire yourself and you don’t need to buy a tire repair kit or a spare tire.
However, if you want a repair kit for peace of mind, they are available to purchase from Tesla.
It’s important to note that Tire Repair Kits are a temporary fix, not a permanent solution. They can be used to patch up a tire for a maximum of 300km and can only be used on punctures that are less than a quarter of an inch wide.