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

Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 635 posts

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#91

Post by djaychela »

goalieca wrote: post #79
audunw wrote: post #7

It’s great to bring this problem up. But the focus on EVs is a distraction. > EVs tend to shed around 20 percent more from their tires due to their higher weight and high torque compared to traditional internal combustion engine-powered vehicles. It’s covered in this panel discussion on Fully Charged: https://youtu.be/LeHakmL6eEc?si=ebBAn8RSDhmmLfHI Fleet operators don’t see any significant difference in tire wear. E…

> Fleet operators don’t see any significant difference in tire wear. Larger vehicles have larger tires. The size of a tire on a Tesla is a lot bigger than on my small sedan. They may both go 150,000km but one surely pollutes more.

True, but you should be comparing like with like here. A similar sized ICE vehicle will have similar sized tyres to the Tesla.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#92

Post by mminer237 »

mplewis wrote: post #68
TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words: you're proposing to replace a set of possible, if difficult, technological solutions, with an near-impossible social solution. I'd call that misguided. Technological solutions tend to be discussed because they can be implemented. Social solutions may work better, but only in imaginary la-la land where they can actually be put into practice. In the real world, you can't " just " get people to not drive…

Trains aren’t difficult technical solutions.

Trains aren't a solution at all in most areas. My subdivision isn't going to build a rail line to the city 15 miles away. That would require a total abandonment of single-family housing at the least.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#93

Post by lb1lf »

robertlagrant wrote: post #61
lb1lf wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are still heavy. For instance, the VW id.3 (small-ish EV) has a curb weight 250-450kg (550-1,000lbs) more than my wife's gasoline VW Passat, a quite spacious estate wagon.

I doubt an ID3 weighs only half a ton. Probably at least three times that?

It is close to two tons, I was (clumsily, it appears, but English is my third language, so please bear with me) trying to state that an id.3 compact is 250-450kg (depending on configuration) heavier than a gasoline-powered estate.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#94

Post by slackwaredragon »

undersuit wrote: post #60
beedeebeedee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can't the majority of the people walk to a store and the rest can be serviced by a smaller truck? Single-use zoning. Most people in the US live in areas where you can't walk to a store.

Yes now , but I have assume to were talking about improvements and the future of "walking, biking and public transportation" since adunw started this thread with that sentiment.

A lot of people can't look beyond their own generation and if it's something that takes 20-30 years to realize they just simply think it's too difficult. I see this with my generation (Gen-X), newer generations and even older generations.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#95

Post by notacoward »

audunw wrote: post #7

It’s great to bring this problem up. But the focus on EVs is a distraction. > EVs tend to shed around 20 percent more from their tires due to their higher weight and high torque compared to traditional internal combustion engine-powered vehicles. It’s covered in this panel discussion on Fully Charged: https://youtu.be/LeHakmL6eEc?si=ebBAn8RSDhmmLfHI Fleet operators don’t see any significant difference in tire wear. E…

> the focus on EVs is a distraction.

Indeed.

> EVs tend to shed around 20 percent more

... for the same capacity. Isn't it funny how people focus on per-vehicle numbers for one segment? There are more oversized gas-burning pickups and SUVs than electric anything, plus millions of diesel-burning vehicles that are even heavier. But somehow those all get left out of most stories on this topic. Truly a strange coincidence, everyone forgetting the same thing all at once.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#96

Post by undersuit »

lazide wrote: post #83
undersuit wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're going to drive a multi-ton vehicle instead of bringing a folding cart?

When it’s easier and (value of time) cheaper, why not?

You seem to have different issues than the person I'm replying to. Maybe your situation is different. If you nearest grocery store is 45 minutes away by walking maybe your situation requires a different solution than someone who has expressed interest to walk but stated that they might buy too many groceries to walk that home.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#97

Post by xbmcuser »

audunw wrote: post #7

It’s great to bring this problem up. But the focus on EVs is a distraction. > EVs tend to shed around 20 percent more from their tires due to their higher weight and high torque compared to traditional internal combustion engine-powered vehicles. It’s covered in this panel discussion on Fully Charged: https://youtu.be/LeHakmL6eEc?si=ebBAn8RSDhmmLfHI Fleet operators don’t see any significant difference in tire wear. E…

Yeah this is something that probably will start outside the western world. In poor countries as solar and batteries keep getting cheaper we will start seeing new shapes for vehicles which wont look the same as cars of today. Such vehicles will have a hard time getting cleared for the streets in the developed world because of decades of laws and red tape.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#98

Post by kmeisthax »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #46
bedobi wrote: post #34

Typical hackernews to have threads full of well meaning but ultimately misguided people saying ah we have some technological solution for this. The solution to this problem and every other problem caused by driving is not driving . Period. Not driving doesn't require any new technology, it just requires getting serious about alternatives to driving. (safe, separated bike ways, ebike and micromobility subsidies, rail,…

In other words: you're proposing to replace a set of possible, if difficult, technological solutions, with an near-impossible social solution. I'd call that misguided. Technological solutions tend to be discussed because they can be implemented. Social solutions may work better, but only in imaginary la-la land where they can actually be put into practice. In the real world, you can't " just " get people to not drive…

Automobile dependency is not a technological problem, it is a social problem. Enormous sums of money were spent on lobbying, laws, and infrastructure, all just to make driving tolerable. The cost of this social experiment was that walking was made miserable and dangerous.

A century ago people were saying, "in the real world, you can't just get people to not walk". But they did. We coined the term "jaywalking" to refer to walking down a street like a normal person, manufactured consensus against it, and criminalized anything other than crossing streets at 90 degree angles to get from sidewalk to sidewalk. All so that people in cars could drive faster, which prior to this would have been considered, rightfully, reckless.

All the technological problems caused by cars are downstream of the social engineering done to force people into buying them. If people did not have to drive everywhere, then we wouldn't need to worry about tire dust, fuel efficiency, emissions, and all the other things downstream of forcing people to drive heavy metal boxes everywhere.

If we decided to end this social experiment, we could. Slowly, and in degrees, of course. But generally speaking there's a lot of people who would like to not drive, but have to, and would be willing to deal with the infrastructure changes necessary to make that happen.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#99

Post by westurner »

kylebenzle wrote: post #28
blackoil wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be still cheaper if all tires are made from natural rubber. We shouldn't have old forests destroyed for rubber plantations.

There are two main working solutions that have ALREADY been used and proven to work since WWII. First: a fungal disease has wiped out ALL the rubber trees in south america, thats why we cant grow in it the Western hemisphere, a fungus. If we could grow it here we would and it would drop the price by A LOT. But, we already have a solution, a transgenic species that is resistant, nonsense Government regulation and moro…

"Rubber Made From Dandelions is Making Tires More Sustainable – Truly a Wondrous Plant" (2021) https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/dandelions-produce-more-sust... :

[I'll leave in the hashtags from when I wrote this up to remind myself at the time:]

#DandelionRubber Tires; #Taraxagum

> Aiding the bees and our environment

> Now, Continental Tires is producing #dandelion rubber tires called #Taraxagum (which is the genus name of the species). The bicycle version of their tires even won the German #Sustainability Award 2021 for sustainable design.,

> “The fact that we came out on top among 54 finalists shows that our Urban Taraxagum bicycle tire is a unique product that contributes to the development of a new, alternative and sustainable supply of raw materials,” stated Dr. Carla Recker, head of development for the Taraxagum project.

> The report from DW added that the performance of dandelion tires was better in some cases than natural rubber—which is typically blended with synthetic rubber.

> Capable of growing, as we all know, practically anywhere, dandelion needs very little accommodation in a country or business’s agriculture profile. The #Taraxagum research team at Continental hypothesizes they could even be grown in the polluted land on or around old industrial parks.

> Furthermore, the only additive needed during the rubber extraction process is hot #water, unlike Hevea which requires the use of organic solvents that pose a pollution risk if they’re not disposed of properly.

> Representing a critical early-season food supply for dwindling #bees and a valuable source of super-nutritious food for humans, dandelions can also be turned into coffee, give any child a good time blowing apart their seeds—and, now, as a new source for rubber in the world; truly a wondrous plant.

Taraxacum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#100

Post by avalys »

undersuit wrote: post #69
jayd16 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't mind walking to the store now and then but usually I make fewer trips for more than I could carry.

So you're going to drive a multi-ton vehicle instead of bringing a folding cart?

Yes, because we're a wealthy and productive society and the fruits of human progress in the past 300 years have allowed us to build a civilization where nearly everyone can afford to use a multi-ton machine of nearly incomprehensible complexity and sophistication to carry them around, instead of pushing a cart like a peasant 5,000 years ago did.
Post reply on HN