Now, if I lived in the part of Nashville I visited over the weekend, I am sure I probably would have replaced the rims and tires multiple times by now. Those highways were the worst I have driven on in some time. Thank goodness I had a Volvo XC60 as a rental.
My brother lives in the heart of Atlanta and drives a 2018 Tesla Model 3 with 18" wheels. All four wheels have been replaced due to Atlanta roads, and he's currently driving on a bent rim that still holds air pressure.
I know there have been some problems with sidewall bubbles on the Pirelli tires. But I doubt if any low-aspect-ratio tire on a 5,300-pound vehicle would protect the wheel from many potholes.
We replaced the tires on our first Air Dream with 21" wheels before it was wrecked at 17,000 miles. (I have a heavy foot and typically have to replace summer tires at 11-12,000 miles on every high-performance car I've owned.). None of those eight Pirellis developed any problems. When we got our second Air Dream (used, with 5,700 miles), it was on 21" Pirellis that appeared to have no problems. I replaced the tires, anyway, as they were being driven in a New Hampshire winter, and I was concerned the rubber compound might have been compromised. The two rear replacement tires developed flat spots when parked for several weeks on hot tarmac in south Florida during a long repair stint to replace the battery pack and rear drive unit, so the tires were replaced by Lucid under the car warranty. One of them later got cut by a piece of sharp metal on the road in front of a construction site, so I replaced both tires on that axle yet again.
So, between all this tire mayhem, we've had 20 Pirelli tires on our two Lucids with 21" wheels. No sidewall bubbles have developed, and no wheels have been bent.
The Pirelli tires on the Lucid were newly engineered specifically for the car -- hence the LM1 stamp on the sidewalls. I wonder if the sidewall bubble issue was limited to early-production tires and was later corrected? (Although our first Dream was an early production car.)
P.S. In my earlier post about replacing tires mostly due to tread wear, I forgot about that flat spot issue until I really started to tally up our tire use for this post.
