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Electric cars do emit particulate matter from their tires, a greater amount than ICE vehicles do because they’re heavier. The PM is also a microplasic (rubber).

Electric cars do emit particulate matter from their tires, a greater amount than ICE vehicles do because they’re heavier. The PM is also a microplasic (rubber). But obviously near zero COx/NOx/SOx. Imagine if climate change was a myth, and the only thing we got from all this effort was air that was safe to breathe. Wouldn’t that still be worth it?

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
You're assuming the average person would rather have breathable air than another kitchen appliance from China that they won't even use, which is a wild stretch of the imagination from the people I know.
trgn 3y ago
> Imagine if climate change was a myth, and the only thing we got from all this effort was air that was safe to breathe. Wouldn’t that still be worth it? Such a great sentiment! ICE cars don't only contribute to global warming, they pollute the _local_ environment. And not just the emissions, noise too. Neighbor bought a hybrid. In the mornings, they zoom away to work. Before, they'd wake me up with the rumble of the einge. Nothing to do with global warming, but a very real increase in quality of life.
- labster 3y ago
  I think you’re underestimating atmospheric transport. NOx from China makes up a large portion of the pollutant in California, more than enough to offset local reductions over the past couple decades. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/03/518323094/rise-in-smog-in-western-u-s-is-blamed-on-asias-air-pollution https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/03/518323094...
  - trgn 3y ago
    thanks for the link. Is the idea that EV-manufacturing would increase pollution in China, thus increasing pollution in US?
    - labster 3y ago
      NOx is a product of combustion with an excess of oxygen (too little O2 and you get hydrocarbons; both lead to ozone). You don’t need to make EVs with fossil fuels, so there’s no need for the air pollution to happen at all. Pollution from mining is another problem altogether of course.
Retric 3y ago
EV’s produce slightly more from tires but far less from breaks. It’s kind of shocking when you consider the volume of material removed from both tires and breaks over time * the number of cars.
- dylan604 3y ago
  >It’s kind of shocking when you consider the volume of material removed from both tires and breaks over time * the number of cars. Is it? Everyone that owns a car or has lived with some that owns a car knows that tires and brakes wear down and need replacing. We're talking a 1/4" of a tire and however thick a brake pad is. We know precisely (other than my rounding from laziness of looking it up) how much material is removed. What point were you actually wanting to make?
  - goalieca 3y ago
    > Everyone that owns a car or has lived with some that owns a car knows that tires and brakes wear down and need replacing. When I was a kid, I just assumed it all fell on the road. Let’s be honest, adults never consider the full lifecycle of every product they buy. We only know what we can see in front of us.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Knowing that stuff disappears doesn’t mean you think about what happens to the missing material. I personally didn’t make the connection to air pollution until well after graduating college and I would be surprised if many people make the connection on their own instead of assuming it’s just landing on roads etc.
kdmccormick 3y ago
Even considering the climate benefits of EVs over gas cars, I am skeptical of large scale public investment in EVs because it pulls funding away from what cities really need: public transit and better biking/walking infrastructure. Regardless of the climate, cities just work better for humans when they're not clogged up with cars, EV or not. EVs unfortunately also double down on cars' need for parking in busy areas (due to the need for charging stations) which totally disrupts urban fabric and wastes valuable land that could be housing, businesses, or parks. For rural areas, though, I can see the climate benefit of the EV transition. Without the climate benefit, though, I am just not sure whether the side effects of EVs, like lithium battery production and disposal, would outweigh "cleaner air".
- matthewfelgate 3y ago
  Why not do both? We are always going to have cars: whether gas or electric.
  - kdmccormick 3y ago
    Because (even if we put aside concerns like charging spots, batteries, and increased road damage due to EV weight) there is a finite level of funding available on all levels of government. If private companies want to fund a conversion to EVs, great. But that's not exactly what's happening. There are huge federal and state subsidies happening to incentivize the transition, and those subsidies could instead be used to repair and public transit systems, which at least in my city are literally crumbing, and improve safety for cyclists and pedestrias.
    - matthewfelgate 3y ago
      Is a lot of federal funding going into EVs?
trescenzi 3y ago
Your second point there has always been the thing that surprises me the most about the climate change stuff. Ok so lets say that climate change is fake. What do we get out of going green? - Huge amounts of economic growth during a transition period that requires skills all up and down the skill ladder. - Significantly cleaner air and water which will save hundreds of thousands of lives each year. - Significantly cheaper electricity as the cost of the input to the system(wind, sun, tides, etc) are free. - Actual energy independence as enemy states cannot block our import of solar energy. I'm sure there are more benefits. The list of negatives is basically just: a bunch of people entrenched in the current system lose money and power. I just really struggle to understand how beyond those who'd lose money/power anyone opposes this transition.
- wuliwong 3y ago
  I would agree on the main point that either way, having cleaner air, water, etc. has its benefits beyond the veracity of man made climate change. I would disagree that it also causes huge amounts of economic growth and significantly cheaper energy. I think that it generally is more expensive to manufacture things in a more "green" manner and I think it is hard to beat nuclear for price per watt, despite what I hear bandied about in the discussions of Germany shutting down the nuclear reactors.
- mhb 3y ago
  Opposition might be based on a consideration that the benefits you cite don't outweigh the actual costs and the opportunity costs. Economic growth for its own sake is not a benefit - that's like saying that jobs are valuable.
- Straw 3y ago
  Unfortunately, it has significant costs as well as benefits: -What makes you think we'll get huge economic growth from building very expensive infrastructure? -An excellent goal, but we can get this for example with gas turbines which provide cheap, reliable power, or nuclear. - If renewables provide cheaper electricity, then we don't need to do anything, they'll dominate the market! Although they do provide cheap power when operating, reliable power remains expensive and people want reliable power. Of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't build wind/solar! - The US has energy independence with fossil fuels now. Its expensive to convert renewables to storable form, whereas fossil fuels can be stockpiled in huge quantities. The primary negative is cost! To give an example, a recent report estimated solar at $20/MWh, gas at 45, and solar with four hours of storage at 160! That's for electricity, the easiest area to reduce fossil fuels, but only 20% of energy consumption. Currently, 20% of US power generation comes from coal. Replacing this with gas would halve CO2, as well as providing huge air quality benefits. Just one example of a relatively easy small win that we have available short of green everything.
Gibbon1 3y ago
I saw a I think legit gov funded study that compared emissions by type and by vehicle class. It's a little dated. From memory. Passenger cars produce about 5-10 times more PM-2.5 from exhaust than tires. And about the same for brake dust. Older diesels are filthy. As are older motorcycles without cats. Newer ones are a lot better. My conclusion is EV's are probably trading reduced PM-2.5 from brakes to increased PM-2.5 from tires. Over all it's still significantly less PM-2.5. Although I'd be concerned about difference in health effects because PM-2.5 from exhaust, tires, and brakes aren't identical. Edit: Friend has been doing studies on how air pollution reacts on surfaces including PM-2.5. Makes me think the subject is actually very complicated. And state of knowledge is incomplete.
pretzellogician 3y ago
Particulate matter from tires is already a huge issue (over 25% of ocean microplastics?!) https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/11/car-tires-pollution-microplastic/617216/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/11/car-tire... Airless tires should dramatically reduce this, in testing right now: https://wgno.com/automotive/internet-brands/french-postal-vans-will-test-michelin-airless-tires/ https://wgno.com/automotive/internet-brands/french-postal-va...
- ben_w 3y ago
  > This content is not available in your country/region. (wgno.com) Why should airless tires make any difference to that specific issue?

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

You're assuming the average person would rather have breathable air than another kitchen appliance from China that they won't even use, which is a wild stretch of the imagination from the people I know.

trgn 3y ago

> Imagine if climate change was a myth, and the only thing we got from all this effort was air that was safe to breathe. Wouldn’t that still be worth it? Such a great sentiment! ICE cars don't only contribute to global warming, they pollute the _local_ environment. And not just the emissions, noise too. Neighbor bought a hybrid. In the mornings, they zoom away to work. Before, they'd wake me up with the rumble of the einge. Nothing to do with global warming, but a very real increase in quality of life.

labster 3y ago
I think you’re underestimating atmospheric transport. NOx from China makes up a large portion of the pollutant in California, more than enough to offset local reductions over the past couple decades. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/03/518323094/rise-in-smog-in-western-u-s-is-blamed-on-asias-air-pollution https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/03/518323094...
- trgn 3y ago
  thanks for the link. Is the idea that EV-manufacturing would increase pollution in China, thus increasing pollution in US?
  - labster 3y ago
    NOx is a product of combustion with an excess of oxygen (too little O2 and you get hydrocarbons; both lead to ozone). You don’t need to make EVs with fossil fuels, so there’s no need for the air pollution to happen at all. Pollution from mining is another problem altogether of course.

Retric 3y ago

EV’s produce slightly more from tires but far less from breaks. It’s kind of shocking when you consider the volume of material removed from both tires and breaks over time * the number of cars.

dylan604 3y ago
>It’s kind of shocking when you consider the volume of material removed from both tires and breaks over time * the number of cars. Is it? Everyone that owns a car or has lived with some that owns a car knows that tires and brakes wear down and need replacing. We're talking a 1/4" of a tire and however thick a brake pad is. We know precisely (other than my rounding from laziness of looking it up) how much material is removed. What point were you actually wanting to make?
- goalieca 3y ago
  > Everyone that owns a car or has lived with some that owns a car knows that tires and brakes wear down and need replacing. When I was a kid, I just assumed it all fell on the road. Let’s be honest, adults never consider the full lifecycle of every product they buy. We only know what we can see in front of us.
- Retric 3y ago
  Knowing that stuff disappears doesn’t mean you think about what happens to the missing material. I personally didn’t make the connection to air pollution until well after graduating college and I would be surprised if many people make the connection on their own instead of assuming it’s just landing on roads etc.

kdmccormick 3y ago

Even considering the climate benefits of EVs over gas cars, I am skeptical of large scale public investment in EVs because it pulls funding away from what cities really need: public transit and better biking/walking infrastructure. Regardless of the climate, cities just work better for humans when they're not clogged up with cars, EV or not. EVs unfortunately also double down on cars' need for parking in busy areas (due to the need for charging stations) which totally disrupts urban fabric and wastes valuable land that could be housing, businesses, or parks. For rural areas, though, I can see the climate benefit of the EV transition. Without the climate benefit, though, I am just not sure whether the side effects of EVs, like lithium battery production and disposal, would outweigh "cleaner air".

matthewfelgate 3y ago
Why not do both? We are always going to have cars: whether gas or electric.
- kdmccormick 3y ago
  Because (even if we put aside concerns like charging spots, batteries, and increased road damage due to EV weight) there is a finite level of funding available on all levels of government. If private companies want to fund a conversion to EVs, great. But that's not exactly what's happening. There are huge federal and state subsidies happening to incentivize the transition, and those subsidies could instead be used to repair and public transit systems, which at least in my city are literally crumbing, and improve safety for cyclists and pedestrias.
  - matthewfelgate 3y ago
    Is a lot of federal funding going into EVs?

trescenzi 3y ago

Your second point there has always been the thing that surprises me the most about the climate change stuff. Ok so lets say that climate change is fake. What do we get out of going green? - Huge amounts of economic growth during a transition period that requires skills all up and down the skill ladder. - Significantly cleaner air and water which will save hundreds of thousands of lives each year. - Significantly cheaper electricity as the cost of the input to the system(wind, sun, tides, etc) are free. - Actual energy independence as enemy states cannot block our import of solar energy. I'm sure there are more benefits. The list of negatives is basically just: a bunch of people entrenched in the current system lose money and power. I just really struggle to understand how beyond those who'd lose money/power anyone opposes this transition.

wuliwong 3y ago
I would agree on the main point that either way, having cleaner air, water, etc. has its benefits beyond the veracity of man made climate change. I would disagree that it also causes huge amounts of economic growth and significantly cheaper energy. I think that it generally is more expensive to manufacture things in a more "green" manner and I think it is hard to beat nuclear for price per watt, despite what I hear bandied about in the discussions of Germany shutting down the nuclear reactors.
mhb 3y ago
Opposition might be based on a consideration that the benefits you cite don't outweigh the actual costs and the opportunity costs. Economic growth for its own sake is not a benefit - that's like saying that jobs are valuable.
Straw 3y ago
Unfortunately, it has significant costs as well as benefits: -What makes you think we'll get huge economic growth from building very expensive infrastructure? -An excellent goal, but we can get this for example with gas turbines which provide cheap, reliable power, or nuclear. - If renewables provide cheaper electricity, then we don't need to do anything, they'll dominate the market! Although they do provide cheap power when operating, reliable power remains expensive and people want reliable power. Of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't build wind/solar! - The US has energy independence with fossil fuels now. Its expensive to convert renewables to storable form, whereas fossil fuels can be stockpiled in huge quantities. The primary negative is cost! To give an example, a recent report estimated solar at $20/MWh, gas at 45, and solar with four hours of storage at 160! That's for electricity, the easiest area to reduce fossil fuels, but only 20% of energy consumption. Currently, 20% of US power generation comes from coal. Replacing this with gas would halve CO2, as well as providing huge air quality benefits. Just one example of a relatively easy small win that we have available short of green everything.

Gibbon1 3y ago

I saw a I think legit gov funded study that compared emissions by type and by vehicle class. It's a little dated. From memory. Passenger cars produce about 5-10 times more PM-2.5 from exhaust than tires. And about the same for brake dust. Older diesels are filthy. As are older motorcycles without cats. Newer ones are a lot better. My conclusion is EV's are probably trading reduced PM-2.5 from brakes to increased PM-2.5 from tires. Over all it's still significantly less PM-2.5. Although I'd be concerned about difference in health effects because PM-2.5 from exhaust, tires, and brakes aren't identical. Edit: Friend has been doing studies on how air pollution reacts on surfaces including PM-2.5. Makes me think the subject is actually very complicated. And state of knowledge is incomplete.

pretzellogician 3y ago

Particulate matter from tires is already a huge issue (over 25% of ocean microplastics?!) https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/11/car-tires-pollution-microplastic/617216/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/11/car-tire... Airless tires should dramatically reduce this, in testing right now: https://wgno.com/automotive/internet-brands/french-postal-vans-will-test-michelin-airless-tires/ https://wgno.com/automotive/internet-brands/french-postal-va...

ben_w 3y ago
> This content is not available in your country/region. (wgno.com) Why should airless tires make any difference to that specific issue?