There is a tradeoff between traction and (to a lesser extent) ride quality versus treadwear.
Long treadwear tires tend to have terrible traction qualities as compared to softer tires. This is obviously true in motorsports (and is a major strategy component in Formula One), but is also noticeable on road cars. It's not just sports cars and "racer wannabees", but handling traction is a safety issue at the limit. For winter tires, you typically need a softer and more compliant compound as well.
You could make tires out of something closer to cast iron that would wear incredibly long but have terrible traction and ride.
>There is a tradeoff between traction and (to a lesser extent) ride quality versus treadwear.
Exactly.
If you throw load range E truck tires on your compact SUV they will last until they dry rot, so a decade or so. People buy milsurp Goodyear MTRs and run them on pickups/SUVs and they last practically forever on lighter vehicles. Neither of these will do good things for handling though.
The tire OEMs could make a tire that lasted 100k and provide "tolerable" handling in normal conditions if they wanted. They don't want to because in this day and age anything that obviously trades safety for reduced cost is basically a non-starter and they don't want to get sued into oblivion.
>You could make tires out of something closer to cast iron that would wear incredibly long but have terrible traction and ride.
"sheepsfoot wheels" is the term you're looking for.
Long treadwear tires tend to have terrible traction qualities as compared to softer tires. This is obviously true in motorsports (and is a major strategy component in Formula One), but is also noticeable on road cars. It's not just sports cars and "racer wannabees", but handling traction is a safety issue at the limit. For winter tires, you typically need a softer and more compliant compound as well.
You could make tires out of something closer to cast iron that would wear incredibly long but have terrible traction and ride.