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Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

theguardian.com

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Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#71

Post by buran77 »

dilyevsky wrote: post #33
epistasis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Slightly? I barely use the brakes ever. Whoever is out braking in their EV all the time should have their DL revoked

Some drivers rely too much on one pedal driving only to brake in a panic when they realize it will not stop the car in time. This creates a very uncertain environment for other participants in traffic and I can't tell you how many times I had to step back from a crossing because a driver clearly misjudged the breaking distance of their car using regen braking. It creates a bit of complacency where the expectation is that "the car will take care of it" and one pedal driving does not give the same control over braking as it does over acceleration (or as the regular brake pedal does).

Other drivers assume max regen settings will bring max benefits and end up taking more out of the battery to accelerate only to get far less back (regen braking is ~70% efficient in any EV) when the car regen-brakes, when braking was not really required. Many times coasting is far more efficient than regenerating regardless of what pedals you're using.

Last but not least, all regenerative braking systems are combined with hydraulic braking at low speeds because the torque applied to decelerate is not enough in any of them. So at low speeds the car will actually combine it with friction braking and eventually not regen at all. Take the Zoe where there's no regen at all below 15km/h (9 mph). Emergency braking from high speed is the same. City driving will see a lot of those situations.

So whether you realize it or not, when you are coming to a standstill you use the hydraulic brakes. There may be options to break at low speed with no friction at all but they will not be called regenerative because they will inevitably use energy to do it.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#73

Post by EricE »

Is it really the cars that are the problem - or just a high concentration of particles in the air from having so many people and things jammed in a tight space?

Dense cities themselves are the real problem. I have started carrying portable air sensors around (they are surprisingly cheap and measure a wide variety of things from particles to VOCs and CO2) and simply not being in or near a large city dramatically improves air quality. But hey, lump everything in and bash cars while you are at it - double bonus :p

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#74

Post by zelos »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #68
bryanlarsen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brakes aren't necessary to stop an EV nor to hold a car at a stop on an incline. The only time a Tesla needs to use brake pads are for emergency stops and for the parking brake.

That may be the case for a Tesla (never driven one) but the ride-share Smart EVs we have around Paris absolutely need brakes to come to a stand-still. They will decelerate fairly quickly to 20-25 kmph, but after that, the deceleration rate slows down, and it actually will never stop by itself. For some reason I can't understand, they tried to imitate ICE automatics that don't stand still if you don't have your foot o…

Pressing the brake pedal doesn’t mean the physical brakes are being used, though.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#75

Post by robertlagrant »

epistasis wrote: post #21
capitainenemo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Electric vehicles are estimated to emit 5-19% less PM10 from non-exhaust sources per kilometre than internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) across vehicle classes. However, EVs do not necessarily emit less PM2.5 than ICEVs. Although lightweight EVs emit an estimated 11-13% less PM2.5 than ICEV equivalents, heavier weight EVs emit an estimated 3-8% more PM2.5 than ICEVs" So. It depends. It's sometimes slightly be…

True, but these are all less than 20%, a change which is likely indistinguishable for any sort of risk factors, and likely well within the measurement error for something difficult to measure like this. The true change we need to make is drastically reduce car use, to a tiny fraction of its current use. This is a hard social problem, however, particularly for the older generations who tend to wield power in most gove…

> Younger folks seem pretty excited to allow more biking and walking and rolling, though.

The difference may not be age; it may be having kids and dealing with the practicalities of that.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#76

Post by kwhitefoot »

viktorcode wrote: post #72

> “The risk of lung cancer from air pollution is lower than from smoking, but we have no control over what we all breathe,” We do, to a degree. If you have air purifiers at home that does help. I can’t recommend them enough.

> If you have air purifiers at home that does help.

Does it? Or does merely having them make you feel more comfortable. Anyway it also means that I would have to live in a tightly sealed building, but I rather like having the window open.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#77

Post by robertlagrant »

reducesuffering wrote: post #60
giraffe_lady wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, "PM10 for non-exhaust sources per km" and then the following line has more info about about pm2.5. Please just go read the thing it's not our duty to quote it at you piece by piece to disprove your assumptions about how good EVs are especially when the article is right there and not even long or very technical. If you have trouble reading or understanding english then I apologize and of course please continue to…

Go back and actually read your parent comment and then tell us who (still) really has the reading comprehension problem…

They weren't saying that. They were just saying go read it for yourself and decide.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#78

Post by epistasis »

robertlagrant wrote: post #75
epistasis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but these are all less than 20%, a change which is likely indistinguishable for any sort of risk factors, and likely well within the measurement error for something difficult to measure like this. The true change we need to make is drastically reduce car use, to a tiny fraction of its current use. This is a hard social problem, however, particularly for the older generations who tend to wield power in most gove…

> Younger folks seem pretty excited to allow more biking and walking and rolling, though. The difference may not be age; it may be having kids and dealing with the practicalities of that.

The opposition is coming from people past child rearing years. Other parents like me are one of the strongest contingencies for getting rid of car-dependency. Cars are one of the greatest threats to kids in terms of death, disability, and maiming. And building cities around cars makes having kids a huge huge hassle, you have to drive them everywhere and they have zero autonomy.

Cars and kids are an absolute terrible combo.

I'm not sure if you've seen the huge rise of cargo bikes that I have seen, but they are nearly all parents with kid seating on the back in my town. We are trying to make do with terrible infrastructure and city planning, but it wouldn't take much change to make it all very much better.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#79

Post by robertlagrant »

epistasis wrote: post #78
robertlagrant wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Younger folks seem pretty excited to allow more biking and walking and rolling, though. The difference may not be age; it may be having kids and dealing with the practicalities of that.

The opposition is coming from people past child rearing years. Other parents like me are one of the strongest contingencies for getting rid of car-dependency. Cars are one of the greatest threats to kids in terms of death, disability, and maiming. And building cities around cars makes having kids a huge huge hassle, you have to drive them everywhere and they have zero autonomy. Cars and kids are an absolute terrible…

Yep; we live where we do to maximise cycling. Here are the problems with that as a general rule:

- it's desirable, so property prices in places that enable this are higher, if there is even a location that could fulfill this

- expensive bikes aren't affordable by most people who also need a car

- there's a large window where kids are too big for a cargo bike, and still too young to go off freely

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#80

Post by epistasis »

robertlagrant wrote: post #79
epistasis wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposition is coming from people past child rearing years. Other parents like me are one of the strongest contingencies for getting rid of car-dependency. Cars are one of the greatest threats to kids in terms of death, disability, and maiming. And building cities around cars makes having kids a huge huge hassle, you have to drive them everywhere and they have zero autonomy. Cars and kids are an absolute terrible…

Yep; we live where we do to maximise cycling. Here are the problems with that as a general rule: - it's desirable, so property prices in places that enable this are higher, if there is even a location that could fulfill this - expensive bikes aren't affordable by most people who also need a car - there's a large window where kids are too big for a cargo bike, and still too young to go off freely

I don't view any of these as a problem in the least. And sorry if it comes across as as a strong critique, I don't mean any of it personally, but have heard people say these same things but never from people that actually bicycle with their family.

We do all sorts of things that increase property value, why is it suddenly only a problem when bikes are involved? And the problem is only because we do a little amount of transition and not a lot? This is a completely fabricated concern in my estimation, the type of thing that people come up with instead of simply saying "I don't like this and don't want it."

Similarly, the concern about the cost of bikes is completely invalid, as bikes are always cheaper than a car, even brand new cargo e-bikes are only a few months of car expenses at most.

And I haven't seen that window where kids can't bike on their own or ride with another parent, and I know families that bike with kids of all sizes and ages.

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