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Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

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Re: Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

#521
post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> slightly higher tire wear (due to weight) And thus higher tire particle pollution. And it's not slightly, EVs are on average 10-15% heavier than similar ICE vehicles. We've now found that a lot of the various small particle pollution (e.g. in bodies of water) come from tires. So, while still drastically better than ICEs, they still have externalities (pollution, time wasted in traffic, vehicle accidents) and there…

I'm sure you feel the same way about cutting down on cell phones right? How about we just let people keep their cars (preferably EVs), but feel free to go live in a dense cell block and eat bug juice if that is what floats your boat.

> I'm sure you feel the same way about cutting down on cell phones right

How many people die in cell phone accidents yearly where you live? How many have reduced lifespans due to the pollution of cell phones? And how many hours can be saved per year per human with good cell phone sharing? I would guess the number is 0 for all of those, but quite a bit higher for cars alternative transportation options.

If you feel personally offended by the mere idea that there might be alternatives to cars, and that at the scale of a human settlement, they're often better, you need to take a step back and consider why you identify yourself with cars so much. And if that doesn't help, consider that more people having alternatives means less cars on the roads, so more space for you to vroom vroom around and less people bothering you on the road!

Re: Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

#522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An an EV owner, I can testify that the tyre wear more than makes up for the reduction in brake dust How could you possibly measure that just from your personal experience? Sounds more like a wild guess that is in contradiction with actual studies.

>How could you possibly measure that just from your personal experience? Simple napkin math by comparing longevity of parts with volume of parts consumed.

Sure, but your personal experience could very easily be on the higher end of the distribution. You simply CANT confirm something like that based on personal experience. Either your personal experience lines up with some statistical fact or it doesn’t, either way, without the proper statistical context it’s borderline useless.

Re: Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

#523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do all Toyotas do that? I'm pretty sure that my dad's Corolla will rev the engine when I press the gas if the engine is already running. I'm also surprised for the first few minutes when I drive it how little "engine braking" it has (my habit is from riding a big motorbike).

Dunno. My both Priuses did it and the company was specifically using the Yaris Hybrid. Both will rev on neutral, but when the gear selector is on Drive there is no link between the pedal and RPM.

And on Brake it's even the opposite: above a certain speed, you press the accelerator and the RPM decreases to remove engine braking.

Re: Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

#524
post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How could you possibly measure that just from your personal experience? Simple napkin math by comparing longevity of parts with volume of parts consumed.

Sure, but your personal experience could very easily be on the higher end of the distribution. You simply CANT confirm something like that based on personal experience. Either your personal experience lines up with some statistical fact or it doesn’t, either way, without the proper statistical context it’s borderline useless.

Sure, but if the napkin math spits out results orders of magnitude higher than reasonable personal variance then you're still on the way to a decent answer.

FWIW I think the qualitative difference between tire and brake dust is going to mean a lot more than individual variance.

Re: Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

#525
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some extent, but not really. Effectiveness of regenerative braking depends on having an extremely large battery that can sink enough current to stop the car. An EV can do that, hybrids at best help the brakes out some. You just can't charge the battery fast enough doing anything but a very slow rolling stop. My model Y can effect a very reasonable stop in traffic without touching the brake pedal except to hold the…

> Effectiveness of regenerative braking depends on having an extremely large battery that can sink enough current to stop the car. An EV can do that, hybrids at best help the brakes out some. You just can't charge the battery fast enough doing anything but a very slow rolling stop. This seems a bit exaggerated. Staying regenerative-only does require sticking to about half or so of how fast I could stop, but so far th…

I won't speak to your '22 Escape, but I've driven countless hybrids going back to a '04 Prius and none of them were brake-free in general use. EVs really are.

Re: Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

#526

It feels like we are still trying to convince ourselves that EVs are a good idea. Progress is too slow and too painful.

Why wouldn’t they obviously be?

I believe OP is lamenting the fact that we still need to have the "EV/hybrids's are better the ICE vehicles" discussion in 2025. That there's a segment of the population that needs a mountain of such overwhelming evidence to be convinced of the value.

Re: Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

#527
Very urban focused of course given the site and there's nothing wrong with an urban focus for EVs.

EVs as they are being pushed on us are made for cities. Outside of a dense urban area, EVs without a gas/diesel powered charger (aka hybrid) are much less useful, but I do not want to see charging stations everywhere either.

Kinetic recovery is great, but as there are orders of magnitude less braking required driving outside of cities, the recovered energy is also much less, and the brake dust generated is also much less. Also there are far fewer cars per mile of road (let alone size of the area) and any brake dust pollution is spread over a much wider area.

Many of the negative pollution issues associated with cars are due to excessive density in urban areas, the added amount of braking, the added idling, and the extra acceleration repeatedly required in a city with a stop light every block.

Re: Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

#528
post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn’t they obviously be?

Because some people stand to lose boatloads of money if they are.

(To be clear I quite happen to like EVs)

And those people who would lose money are the EV manufacturers. AFAIK in the US EV manufacturers are barely making money even with gov’t subsidies (baring Tesla). They can’t charge what would be necessary without subsidies because most people simply wouldn’t want or couldn’t afford such a product at that price point.

Re: Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

#529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If all of us renters were forced to convert to electric there’d never be an open charger in any city again for the next five years, because no landlord will voluntarily afford that cost, and no municipal region can pass a ballot measure to afford that cost. Landlords can charge tenants over the price of electricity. > What city has charging available for an average of greater than one spot per five hundred multifam…

The difficult is not electricity prices; those can simply be tariff'd for overhead-slash-profit as all U.S. chargers do already. The difficulty is building out hundreds of chargers within a single city block's worth of the city's x,y grid. That level of power density is generally only seen in heavy industrial zones, and residential distribution grids can barely cope with air conditioners, much less with electric vehi…

> I think that China has a significant advantage versus the U.S. — they are primarily selling very small vehicles for intra-city use

This does not match what I’ve seen in China at all. Nor does it match up with any data I’ve seen about the best selling cars in China. Do you have any data on this?

Re: Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars

#530
post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn’t they obviously be?

I believe OP is lamenting the fact that we still need to have the "EV/hybrids's are better the ICE vehicles" discussion in 2025. That there's a segment of the population that needs a mountain of such overwhelming evidence to be convinced of the value.

Ah yes. Sorry I read that comment and replied with mine soon after waking. My brain wasn’t fully on yet :)
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