Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?

emissionsanalytics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 336 posts

Re: Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?

#81

Post by ghouse »

nightski wrote: post #80
ghouse wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except no. The heaviest Tesla Model 3 weighs 4,100 lbs. The heaviest Ford F-150 (the most popular vehicle in the US) weighs 5,600 lbs.

Right but people buying F-150s are not buying Teslas. The use case is quite different. My Subaru Outback (a rather large car in comparison to the Tesla) is 3,600 lbs. But I doubt the increase in weight is a huge factor in environmental concerns.

But compared to freight trucks, the F-150, the EV, and the Outback are all inconsequential.

Re: Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?

#82

Post by sjg007 »

toss1 wrote: post #42

Yes, the tires wear, and the wear can be easily measured by the mass difference between a new tire, worn tire, divided by the distance. Plausible that the total wear is 1-3 orders of magnitude total mass greater than modern tailpipe emissions. A huge question that is never answered is how much of those worn particles actually become airborne, how many stay airborne for how long, and what is their effect on organisms…

It will be dose dependent.

Re: Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?

#83

Post by 6510 »

OT: I was thinking: Imagine how easy self driving trains are to make. Then I naively pondered if air filled tires are all that efficient. I cant imagine bending the rubber gives back a lot of energy? I just looked it up: "An average truck gets around 150 ton-miles per gallon of diesel. Trains get around 600 ton-miles per gallon."

Re: Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?

#84

Post by Spooky23 »

zip1234 wrote: post #49
pinko wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a civil engineer telling me once that if highways only had cars on them they would last 100 years between repavings.

I highly doubt this in cold areas but might be true elsewhere

My dads driveway in upstate NY was paved in the 90s and is pretty pristine, but it’s surfaced every 2 years and well drained.

Re: Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?

#85

Post by Spooky23 »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #31

The claims here seem dubious. They tested one type of brand new tire. Then they conclude that "high-quality" tires are somehow better without providing any evidence to support that claim. While tires may very well be a source of pollution I have to wonder where the money for the work came from.

Shitty tires start with the same tread depth, but wear out in 25-35k miles. High quality tires usually go 50-60k.

Re: Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?

#86

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

gambiting wrote: post #77

I also wonder about pollution from shoes with plastic soles - pretty much every pair I have ever owned, the sole just wears out gradually until there's nothing left. Where does this plastic go? It's just ground into fine powder and stays on our pavements? Is then washed with rainwater and goes into our soil? How come this isn't a problem yet? Or if it is - why isn't anyone talking about it?

Because plastic is not a significant pollutant. What's next, we're going to remove soil from the environment? Soil is full of, mold, bacteria, virus, metals, minerals, fungi, urine, feces, decomposed insects, thousands of chemicals like rust, alumina, silica, heavy metals, many carcinogens, lung irritants etc. It can give you "Farmer ’s Lung" and it's _everywhere_ in nature. Plastic is quite clean and tame by comparison.

Re: Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?

#87

Post by helsinkiandrew »

Presumably they meant 5.8 milligrams/km rather than grams - thats 290 grams over 50,000km.

The following literature review(2014) mentions an estimate of 0.1-10% tyre wear becoming airborne - because the majority is relatively large particles:

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/J...

Re: Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?

#88

Post by sokoloff »

smt88 wrote: post #64
taneq wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do most people’s tyres last longer than 50k kms? Maybe I’m doing something wrong...

Good tires driving on mostly paved roads should last at least 120k kms. In the US, you pay $120-200 per tire for those, but they also come with a warranty that will replace them for free if they wear out before the distance advertised.

That's not how treadwear warranties work. They're not "replace them for free"; they're pro-rated, and there are all kinds of restrictions and limitations.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/tires/why-tread-life-war...

Re: Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?

#90

Post by cptskippy »

ghouse wrote: post #73
amelius wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Road wear scales with the fourth power of axle load, so heavier vehicles do much more damage than one might expect. Yes. Electric vehicles with their heavy batteries also make things worse.

Except no. The heaviest Tesla Model 3 weighs 4,100 lbs. The heaviest Ford F-150 (the most popular vehicle in the US) weighs 5,600 lbs.

A Toyota Camry weights 3600lbs, so it's not like EVs are extraordinary heavy either. Additionally, 15 gallons of gas is about 100lbs.
Post reply on HN