(Also great that the report mentions the importance of walking/cycling for city transport)
This being said, I’ve noticed that many a “big EV” driver will take off from red lights like they’re driving a dragster.
That would be my guess. Occasionally looking at specs from EV's coming on market, they seem to have very powerful engines, and of course the torque curve of electric motors is fantastic. So if you have such a car, and a heavy foot, I can well imagine you going through tires at a decent clip.
Though the additional acceleration probably does also make a difference.
Case in point - we have a Volkswagen e-Up, it barely weighs 1000kg, it's pretty much one of the lightest cars on the road. And yet it goes through its front tyres like nothing, and that's despite very modest power output of only 80bhp. But I do accelerate hard as it's so easy to do - so it's reflected in the tyre wear.
On many roads you accelerate and brake less often than you go around corners.
These two things are equivalent on tire wear given the forces involved:
1 corner at 50kmh with 50m radius.
Accelerating linearly at 0.39g (7 second 0-100kmh) to 77kmh from 0.
That's equivalent to those high school physics exercises that say "assume zero friction and no gravity". Everything else isn't equal with EVs because they make accelerating from standstill so effortless without any obvious downside that people do it back to back like it's nothing, while in an ICE you'd have to drive like a madman dumping the clutch every time just to get the same torque at the start. If you had two cars accelerating at the same rate then sure, the heavier one would wear out its tyres faster - but that's just not how people drive EVs(broadly speaking).
Also, if you compare two gasoline cars of different weights, the heavier one burns through tires quicker.
Hybrid vehicles generally have less torque so they have less this type of wear. Unless driven purposefully aggressively.
Clear solution would be to limit acceleration of vehicles and mandate traction control that limits this type of wear.
The world is burning. Hundreds of millions people are going to die. We have a solution… and you won’t let us use it because it increases the rubber levels in people who lick tyres. As if that matters. So what if there are more rubber particles in their mouths? We can eliminate vehicle pollution!
On the other hand, carbon emissions are known to cause global warming which will literally be the end of the world if we don't fix it fast. From what I've read it may already be too late, we may already be on course for runaway climate change that we may not be able to fix.
To me that's a much more pressing matter.
Poisoning the oceans does not seem like a good strategy for the human race.
It's definitely an issue with ICE and EVs, but is often brought up in EV discussions as people get the impression that EVs are "pollution free" due to their lack of exhaust emissions. Also, EVs tend to produce more tyre dust due to their slightly heavier weight and increased torque.
Incidentally, a small Chinese study found 6PPD and 6PPDQ in human urine in low concentrations. We don't currently know what health effects, if any that may have.