that's really good to know. are you one of Munro guy?
You're correct. The handwheel actuator (steering wheel motor) receives road wheel actuator(s) (steering rack power pack) sensors various data and translates that into handwheel torque for the drivers road feel feedback. Software *could* be in place to negate certain road or vehicle feels, like road wheel imbalance, road or wind pull drift compensation, soft end-stops for rack end of travel, etc. It all depends on how Tesla has programmed their SbW system. These can also be selected by choosing the various OEM installed calibrations.
Tread is not the problem, size is. A perfectly balanced AT should have no vibration or feedback felt through the wheel. I have 33" mud tires on my Jeep that drive butter smooth at 90mph. But I've had countless big tires, and anything 35" or bigger is a pain to get perfectly balanced and almost always shake over 70-75mph. My last set of 35's (also Goodyear!) took 4 trips to the tire shop to get right, store manager had to do it himself. Guaranteed Tesla does not perfectly balance the tires that come out a little funky with imbalances from side to side (weights required closer to a specific edge). If I had this problem, I'd get them rebalanced until the vibrations go away. If that doesn't fix it, usually it's just 1 of the 4 that's being extra-difficult and a good tire tech should help you locate and replace the bad one if necessary.
The more knobbly the tire is, the more gaps in the tread, the more noise and vibration it imparts into the vehicle.
I have hundreds of thousands of miles on large offroad tires and fixing this problem, so I get that. The GY tires on CT are not very aggressive at all, and tread NVH is different than the topic of this thread, "shivering" or shimmying, or wobbling, or whatever you want to call it that is felt through the wheel in a cyclic pulling fashion, which is due to imbalance. Otherwise, we wouldn't have other people on the same exact tires going 100MPH without any issues. Inconsistencies inherent to manufacturing tires make it impossible to get it perfect, hence every tire needs weight to make it balanced. The bigger the tire is, the more potential for encountering a difficult or impossible to balance situation. I have seen this with Goodyear, BFG, Toyo, Interco, Nitto, and other tires, although some brands have better QC than others. Most brands don't usually have issues under 33" but have had this occasionally with car tires as well.
Yup I had deep dish wheels on a 5 series that would cause my passenger seat to shake at interstate speeds. I learned quick that deep dish wheels + Mississippi pot holes don't mix... Never again lol
