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> Yes, the higher weight of EVs is a bit of an issue. But not as much as people make it out to be. Not to detract from the discussion‘s topic but weight is an
by _Microft 3y ago
> Yes, the higher weight of EVs is a bit of an issue. But not as much as people make it out to be.
Not to detract from the discussion‘s topic but weight is an issue. Road damage scales with fourth power of axle load. That’s is, a car with 2t instead of 1.5t does three times the damage.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- zemvpferreira 3y agoTrue but that should also tell you that road damage comes almost exclusively from commercial-sized vehicles, coming back to the main point: Added EV weight in passenger cars is a non-issue.
- OJFord 3y ago> Road damage scales with fourth power of axle load. Why? That's not intuitive to me. (I'm not saying you're wrong, just want to understand.)
- _Microft 3y agoThanks, I updated my comment with a link to Wikipedia.
- xboxnolifes 3y agoThree times the damage of a tiny number is still tiny. Vans, garbage trucks, plows, tractor trailers, pickup trucks, all do significantly more damage. A single garbage truck is going to do more damage than 4000 EV cars in one pass. That's what people mean when they say EV weight isn't as impactful as people make it out to be. There's also the assumption that most road damage comes from vehicles. I don't know how it proportions out between vehicles and weather, but weather, particularly freeze and thaw, is very damaging to roads.