EVs Are Sending Toxic Tire Particles into the Water, Soil, and Air
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
On one hand, there's an interesting discussion to be made: EVs are heavier, which means (while they cause less CO2 emission) they may cause more pollution in other areas. I think in the grand scheme of things EVs are clearly better than ICEs, but that doesn't mean we can just say "Oh we have EVs now, problem solved!" and go back to "business as usual."
On the other hand ...... I have a hunch why this was posted to HN, and it's probably not to have a balanced discussion about different ways vehicles pollute the earth and what we should do about it.
You seem to be torn between open discussion (do EV's have negative effects?) and ideological purity (EV's must be only prestented as positive regardless of facts).
You know what you should be thinking (adhere to the Party line) and you are afraid that taking part in free discussion might lead you to conclusions that are at odds.... So you would rather self-censor your thoughts and avoid any discussion.
Welcome to 1984...
But relax and think about why tire emissions of heavy cars are brought up with EVs in particular, when the same point can be made with SUVs vs. smaller cars.
Going further, who stands to gain, multi national oil conglomerates who are known for manipulating public discourse in favor of cars vs. public transport and right of way and on the other side, the bad bad people trying to act on a very inconvenient and annoying scientific consensus that we need to alter our behaviour.
1984 indeed, but who is the powerful oppressor here, especially when you are a child, witnessing the destruction of what your parents were still able to enjoy.
Yes comrade, Enemy never sleeps, we must be always cautious and of highest ideological purity...
Its not ideological purity but pragmatism, in more way than one.
Do you feel triggered by "green"-ness?
> New EV models tend to be heavier and quicker—generating more particulates and deepening the danger.
Compared to what? I'm pretty sure a Nissan Leaf has nothing on an ICE escalade.
Yeah. EVs are much worse, until we find some magical battery breakthrough or realize not everyone needs 350 mile range.
That said I’ll take worse tire emissions over better tire emissions plus CO2 + CO + NO2 + whatever else + all the emissions creating/moving gas.
You want lower EV tire emissions? Cut down own the need to drive.
> According to Geotab, a transportation connectivity services company, an average EV loses 2.3% of its battery capacity each year that it's in service. An EV that has a 300-mile-range would have a 293-mile-range after a year. After five years on the road, you could expect a range of 266 miles on a single charge.
https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/advice/how-long-do-ev-ba...
Maybe at the end of the day the car is just not the best way to go across a country as large as the US.
Nobody wants to take a Greyhound bus to see their parents that live 4 hours away in the next state over.
Personally the absolute minimum range I would consider for an EV is 250 miles with 300 or more being ideal.
A car is an expensive enough purchase that most consumers want a vehicle that will cover as many of their potential use cases as they can afford. This is why you see a lot of suburbanites buy pickup trucks. They don't need it for 99% of the year, but it comes in really handy for that 1% of the time where they are buying lumber from Home Depot, throwing an already put together barbecue grill in the bed (because why not, it costs the same as the one in the box with the barely written in English instructions), or going off the beaten trail to go deer hunting with your buddy from college.
Because, as a practical matter, short range vehicles suck. I don't want to have to charge my car every five minutes. And if you want to tow with a pick up truck EV there's just no getting away from the practical reality that you need many kilowatt hours in your battery pack.
The Chevy Silverado EV has around about a 212 kWh battery pack in the longest range trim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUN358zio7A
And you need those kWhs for towing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGPxjg_jDog
What kind of range are you envisioning here?
>And if you want to tow with a pick up truck EV there's just no getting away from the practical reality that you need many kilowatt hours in your battery pack.
But I don't have a pickup. Should I buy a pickup for this chance?
>And you need those kWhs for towing
Well yes I obviously need the power to tow my groceries home.
My personal benchmark is 400 miles real world highway range. The Lucid Air achieves 500 miles real world highway. The Mercedes EQS is almost there at 395:
https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/
The Chevy Silverado EV will supposedly achieve more than 400 miles.
My benchmark is not a high bar.
> Well yes I obviously need the power to tow my groceries home.
Kilowatt hours is energy content, not power.
It doesn't have to be magical. It can just be steady improvement in battery chemistry.
Nio's cars have swappable battery packs. The current battery sizes they use are 75 kWh, 100 kWh, and their new battery option is 150 kWh:
https://cnevpost.com/2023/07/07/nio-user-manuals-include-150...
From 75 to 150 kWh that's a doubling of energy content in the same physical pack dimensions, and the 150 kWh pack has only a 20 kg weight increase versus the 100 kWh pack.
A 75 or 100 kWh pack with the same WeLion chemistry would weigh less than Nio's existing 75 and 100 kWh packs. Once production scales up Nio may well switch all the packs to the WeLion chemistry if the price is right.
That's not achieved through magic. It's achieved through better battery chemistry.
1. batteries contribute a lot to EV weight, which in turn contributes to tire dust,
2. people overbuy on range for 1% of long-range trips, and
3. batteries degrade by some percent every year
So why not do the following:
- allow battery packs to be swappable including
- having battery bays for a range up to something like 300miles, but composed of smaller batteries with 100miles range each?
Then you could:
- add batteries when you need them (longer range, higher wear), and
- remove batteries when you don't need them (lower range, lower wear), and as added benefit:
- because batteries are swappable, they can be replaced easily, and range extensions could even be rented for the two weeks of holidays (range as a service)
This could follow a similar model to how winter and summer tires are swapped regularly in many countries.
If batteries were standardized, then they could even be shared between different vehicle types to account for seasonal need (farming, holidays, other machinery).
In the end like others have said, it's extra tire particles vs all the nasty crap from ICE.