'Car Brain' Is Making the US Unhealthy and Dangerous. EVs Won't Fix It | Hacker News Reader

'Car Brain' Is Making the US Unhealthy and Dangerous. EVs Won't Fix It

bloomberg.com

https://archive.ph/20251011083536/https://www.bloomberg.com/...

It's impressive for an article about how bad cars are to directly address their impact on human health yet and magically not mention the pollution from combustion or even brake dust.

How does that even happen without the article being intended as an EV hit piece?

Replace cars and busses and motorbikes with electric equivalents. It's cheaper, cleaner, greener, quieter, safer.

You can do other things in parallel too. Anyone suggesting you can't is at best an idiot.

Traffic dust consists of brake dust (which EVs improve), but also microplastic dust from tire wear, asphalt wear, and road marking paint wear. EVs tend to be heavier which increases these other sources of road particulate pollution.

I'm extremely pro-EV, but when it comes to non-combustion particles I'm forced to honestly acknowledge that our best data says it's a double-edged sword.

Many studies have looked at this (and I encourage you to read widely to explore the consensus), but selecting just one:

https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/gaining-traction-los...

(also, nice username)

That is a crappy source, here is a better overview, which specifically calls out your source as being ridiculous and failing basic a common sense check:

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electric-vehicles-...

> One study hit the headlines when it claimed that tyres emit ‘more than 1,000 times as much pollution as exhausts’. There are a few reasons why we should be cautious about this result. The first comes from a small sense check on the numbers [see the footnote for details].3 The second is that most of the particles (by mass) that are emitted from tyres are large, and large particles are less problematic for air quality and human health. It’s the very small particles – less than 2.5 microns – that we’re worried about. A much smaller fraction of these particles will be in that size range.

> So, I think the ‘1,000 times as much’ headline is too high. But, tyre wear is still significant and we need more research on it.

For those in the back, I did explicitly disclaim that as my Single Source of Truth (again I encourage you to look at the totality of work in this area), but conspicuously you never dispute my actual point which is that tire and asphalt and road marking particulates are significant marks against heavier vehicles.

You also hyperfocus on air pollution, but large microplastic particles are major sources of water and soil pollution too. Some tire additives are persistent aquatic toxins, which effects both.

I will accept this as (as closest you can get to) conceding the point.

I refer back to my original statement that EVs are clearly better and anyone claiming you can't do two things at once, like remove aquatic toxins from tyres, is at best deluding themselves.

I wouldn't dispute either statement.

Indeed, I was going to point out that the real solutions involve practical mitigations like longer-wearing tire/road compounds and removal of the most ecologically harmful anti-fungal additives used in tires today. Naturally, you would still want to do this regardless of switching to EVs (which I think is inevitable).

My point is that the way you're arguing undermines our side's credibility. When you say (rightly IMO) that TFA is dishonest for omitting major emission routes because they're inconvenient toward their EV beliefs, everyone immediately sees how that cuts both ways. Even though we're right, it makes our side look disingenuous (and worse hypocritical) by selectively ignoring downsides while simultaneously accusing others of the exact same. It's weak rhetoric.

Please keep fighting the good fight! I only wish my allies to be more effective fighters armed with the most powerful rhetoric. Thanks.

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