Should not occur in EVs because braking is not necessary.
> Tyre dust
Fine. In cities this is one of the easiest problems to solve, since most of it is washed out into drainage pipes and the waste water can be effectively filtered (although this is not done in most places yet).
Fortunately I don't live in a city anymore so I don't have to put up with these rules.
I'm glad people are looking at how to reduce the impact of tire dust. I expect we can make big improvements because it's not something we've optimized for yet.
Not mentioned in the article is that EVs also dramatically reduce brake dust because the brakes are hardly used compared to an ICE car.
And you are ignoring that electric cars produce fine dust particles from their brakes and tyres as well.
The fine dust is actually a much more serious problem in the city than combustion engine emissions as the latter are passed through particle filters and the catalyst.
Exactly right, tire and brake dust are still awful with EVs, though contra the slight implication in the headline, it's no worse than the current situation with ICE vehicles. And the brake dust aspect may slightly reduce due to regenerative braking.
Most EVs indeed use regenerative braking. Which means your brake pads last a lot longer as you barely use them. Tire particles are a bigger problem. Just think of the mass of tires that you erode away before you replace them (routinely) and compare that to the brake pads you replace much less often. And it's not just the tires that erode but also the road. Asphalt particles are nasty as well. Though most of that dust is quite coarse and doesn't stay in the air as long. But then, tire and road dust is apparently the biggest source of microplastics in our oceans. It washes away, enters our sewers, rivers, and eventually the oceans. It's bad for different reasons as well.
EVs have must less brake dust because they rarely use the brakes. But EVs don’t fully solve tire dust yet. HOWEVER, they make it a problem worth solving. When you’re comparing to diesel particulates (which are actually an enormous problem...) and fossil fuel smog to tire dust, solving tire dust doesn’t seem very pressing. But it would if we switched to EVs.
And there are possible solutions to tire dust. Changes to tire formulation, better road maintenance and mitigations, possibly relying more on tunnels (which we should do anyway in cities, even if it’s more expensive... and EVs make it much easier). Once fossil fuels are solved, it makes tire dust the next problem we can tackle.
So don’t use tire dust as an excuse to not transition to electric vehicles. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the much better. (And public transport can also generate particulates... tire dust, dust from rails, brake dust, and especially diesel particulates from buses.... we need to electrify everything.)
> have tire and brake dust (worse, due to the average weight)
this isn't really true. EV brakes barely get any use because of regenerative breaking, and EV tires tend to be stiffer which mostly evens out the tires.
Brake and tire dust absolutely are a problem, even if it’s inconvenient for you. Reducing fine particulate matter pollution is a major concern. That it translates onto railway is fairly unsurprising.
By the way, EVs reduce brake dust since they are basically braking magnetically a lot of the time.
As I understand it a large component of the particulate emissions from cars is resuspended road dust, so it doesn't really matter than an EV or hybrid has little of its own brake dust. The brake dust is already on the ground.
Should not occur in EVs because braking is not necessary.
> Tyre dust
Fine. In cities this is one of the easiest problems to solve, since most of it is washed out into drainage pipes and the waste water can be effectively filtered (although this is not done in most places yet).
Fortunately I don't live in a city anymore so I don't have to put up with these rules.
reply