[1] Which are heavy, because they can't source 2/3 of their reaction mass from the atmosphere and have to keep all the reactants in the battery at all time.
Is it not? Particular matter from tires is a major factor in air pollution and the heavier the vehicle the more that ramps up.
It's something the tire industry has been fretting over for a while: https://www.tiretechnologyinternational.com/news/regulations...
-Nissan leaf - 3500 to 3900 lbs
-Tesla model 3 long range - 4250 lbs (131mpge)
-F150 lightning - 6000 to 6900 lbs
Hopefully battery tech can improve at a steady pace that there are in the near-ish future notable reductions in weight.
At best, vehicle mass is a proxy measurement for those things. But the thing is, you use a proxy measurement when the things you're trying to measure are hard to measure. That stuff is easy!
Fundamentally my point is libertarian: If we want to regulate safety, we should regulate safety and not play dumb games with weight rules that then need to be tuned for EVs or whatnot. Fine-tuned rulemaking doesn't work.