It's a shame this is used as an excuse to keep the heavy ICE SUVs and trucks. There are many EVs lighter than an average pickup truck.
If people really cared about this, they'd demand train-based public transport instead (no tires! fully electric! self-driving too!), or at very least limits on car weight regardless of the engine.
Trains also have brakes which produce large quantities of fine particles.
This is especially a problem in enclosed spaces with limited ventilation: on parts of the London Underground, air pollution in the tunnels can be many times worse than on the streets above.
Trains are also way more efficient than cars at transporting people. If everyone taking the train was driving instead you can bet air quality would be way worse.
Why do you think that was an excuse for ICE vehicles? That’s your own biases showing. I’m anti-car in general, and very pro public transit.
EVs aren’t going to be the savior of climate change. They do some things better than ICE cars, but do some things worse. Denying those worse things is just putting your fingers in your ears.
Unfortunately buses and trains are only viable above a certain density, and many communities exist configured in such a way that they are intentionally low density. While metal mining might have an environmental impact, abandoning millions of existing homes and building new ones in cities not only also has a large environmental impact (concrete also isn't great for the environment), but it is also politically, economically, and practically unviable.
A mix of solutions will be needed to fix the variety of different and unique problems that exist.
Busses are viable as long as you make them viable. If you have a busstation at a 1 km distance you can make it viable in most places even with the mega sprawl of the US. The economical incentives of a car economy is perverse it is the tradgedy of the commons distilled.
Most of the US has single digit numbers of people per square km. And the average daily commute is 61 km. And suburban sprawl had led to the decline in city centers. Low density, high distance, and poor directionality are very significant challenges for planning a bus line.
Have you used bus systems in the US? Even in cities that have made a large investment in bus service, it can be a challenge.
I know it sucks living in the US without a car, I do think it is important to know that it can be done. You are going to have to prioritize though. I've lived carless in some of the most car dependent places of the earth, including the US so I know what makes that a great deal.
I closely know people who have lived in extreme rural areas of the US without a car. You are right that it is possible. But it certainly presented significant challenges. There's a reason why people buy cars in the US.
I personally loved taking busses and trains when I lived in the city. I didn't go far but with a pass I'd take them all the time. I now live in a suburban sprawl and I can never convince my wife to bus it. She usually has a point: it's pretty inconvenient to get from our home to a bus/train stop. I live by a train but would love it if they were electric though that'd do nothing to reduce brake dust.
They're ugly but I'd love them if I had them. Why the hate for hydrogen? Mark my words, we're being forced to upgrade our HVAC systems to be "green" the use TONS of electricity when in 20-40 years, we're going to do it all over again to move on to hydrogen. I'm already spending $300 a month on electricity using "green" tech. The second I can produce my own hydrogen, I will.
Majority don't buy their electricity from green suppliers and don't care where their batteries come from. Cobalt mines are hell. Either way, I stand by what I said. Spending 40k+ on a 10 year product that will cost 20k+ to refurbish isn't green. My 12 yo EV battery cost more than the car to replace.
In some places it’s fairly hard to get power that isn’t generated by renewables. In New Zealand the grid is 80%+ renewable and my supplier is 100% renewable.
In IL there are no green providers but 3rd parties provide it somehow from TX. I'm not sure how it works but it's quite expensive. I did it for a few years but stopped. Now, with my increase in energy usage due to moving away from gas, it's hard to justify. In the United States, we want to move everything to electric and I believe that's a mistake. Not without nuclear power to subsidize costs. I'd imagine my monthly costs would be closer to $400, which I believe to be insane.
This is true about EVs, but it all just depends on how hard you are on your brakes. I routinely go 70k+ miles in ICE cars with the same brake pads. My mom on the other hand had to change hers about every 30k miles. YMMV.
I haven't really had to engage the friction brakes on my EV in the past 30,000mi, other than intentionally having a few hard stops to scrape rust off the rotors from not using them for so long.
I should add a little bit of honesty here. I did replace my brakes but only because they were rusting from not being used enough! So I bought stainless steel pads and those look great.
This depends on your driving style. I was listening to a person from a lease company on the fully charged podcast recently who literally runs the numbers on their fleet of EVs calling this out as largely a myth (one of several). At scale, they are not really seeing a difference relative to ICE cars. And they'd know because with a lease car, replacing tires is their problem.
Some people of course drive their EVs aggressively and wear out the tires faster. But that's true if you have a muscle car too. Doing donuts in the parking lot just wears out your tires. And if you are in Germany and like seeing how fast your car can go regularly that also wears out your tires. The driving style is a much bigger factor than the weight of the car.
But otherwise the numbers are about the same for ice cars and evs in terms of frequency of needing tire replacements. For most people the novelty of abusing their tires wears of quickly.
And because most EVs use regenerative braking, the main issue with the brakes in EVs is that they are used so infrequently that they need to be replaced because of corrosion issues. You actually need to use the brakes once in a while to keep them clean and functioning apparently.
Yep. Pretty much any kind of wear and tear part that is on an EV wears worse compared to a similarly powerful ICE. It's probably a wash or better because they don't use petroleum products for propulsion, but it is definitely a thing that needs to be considered. EV's are not some kind of panacea.
Except brakes, since they are rarely used due to regenerative braking. Tires, on the other hand, do wear faster than a lighter ICE car. My EV has almost 30,000 miles now and will need tires soon, but other than washer fluid, it has had no other consumables or wear items replaced.
Though to be fair, the tires on my previous ICE vehicle only lasted about 30,000 miles before they needed to be replaced, OEM car tires are often not long lasting. Brake fluid is due to be flushed next year, but not due to use of the brakes, just due to time.
Tire life also depends on where you live. In Atlanta, GA, I specifically haven’t made it more than 20K miles on a set of tires be it wear or road hazard. The issue with nails here is so bad there’s a guy on a bike picking them up with magnets.
That 20K set of tires had a slow leak from a nail that was patched incompletely. On the new set I had to replace two using the hazard insurance I purchased after three months and two thousand miles. I expect to use the insurance again.
I now have an EV with sport summer tires. They’re at 5K miles and have a screw embedded in one tire since about 400 miles. That tire was deemed to be safe and best left alone as it’s presumed to be running through a rubber block only. I’m just running it until it goes flat assuming it doesn’t manage to survive its whole expected life span.
Realistically I’ll end up running something else over this spring once construction gets into full swing.
> Yep. Pretty much any kind of wear and tear part that is on an EV wears worse compared to a similarly powerful ICE.
Probably accurate if you exclude the brakes and ignore the fact that removing an ICE engine from consideration also removes nearly all the tricky bits that wear out on an ICE car.
