481–490 of 524 posts
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Is that true for slower moving vehicles? I can't imagine there's a lot of brake dust generated by stopping & starting in the 0-10 mph range.
Tires and brakes. With EV's this gets relatively worse because they are heavier.
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I'd gonna guess "worse" Brake dust is mostly some iron, carbon, silica. Not great to ingest but very much recyclable by the environment, unlike rubber. And possibly much easier to greatly reduce (just build some shielding around the brake to catch most of the dust) than the tyre
Unfortunately it's also copper and asbestos :(. (Yes, they're banned, but nobody is checking aftermarket brake pads...) But tire dust is definitely now the worst of the two, by far. 6-PPD alone.
On one hand you've got the people who insisted on regulating all of our manufacturing out of the country on environmental and safety grounds. On the other hand you've got the people who want to band asbestos and lead and all manner of other dangerous chemicals in consumer products. Both these people are dressed like Spiderman and they're pointing at each other.
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And unfortunately there is some nasty stuff in tires
There never seems to be much discussion on reducing the harm from tire (and I suppose road surface) particulates. Maybe that's the next frontier?
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It always surprises me when people want stop signs in their neighborhood for traffic calming. The last thing I want is all of the noise and pollution of vehicles stopping and starting over and over again; surely various piece of road furniture like bulb-outs, roundabouts, etc, do a better job with fewer drawbacks. Other than cost, of course.
My assumption is that stop signs act somewhat as a way to enforce the lower speed limits in residential areas. There's several stretches without stops in my suburb where I've seen drivers whizzing by very obviously above the 25mph speed limit, which is bad enough on its own but becomes a serious hazard when combined with the massive blind spots that come from curbs on both directions being filled to the brim with par…
At the expense of basically training people to roll them.
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> A better solution would probably be radar-based speed signs with printed threats of fines, though. I don't think people respond to those as much as they do to "traffic calming" like speed bumps, roundabouts, and narrow choke points.
Of course, drivers respond to speed bumps the same way they respond to other poor road surfaces: 3-ton SUVs.
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It's not just the fact that EVs are heavier than the non-EV version of the same car, it's also that the regenerative braking means that the tires are dissapating energy that otherwise would have gone to the brake pads or to air resistance. Tires wear way faster on an EV, their lifespan in miles is generally much shorter.
The engines are absorbing the energy that would have otherwise gone to the brake pads. Tires apply the braking force to the ground in exactly the same manner on both EVs and ICE vehicles.
Secondly, if you've ridden in an EV, you would know that the drivers/cruise control often apply regent braking in situations where an ICE vehicle would have simply coasted to a stop. Hence more wear.
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It's not just the fact that EVs are heavier than the non-EV version of the same car, it's also that the regenerative braking means that the tires are dissapating energy that otherwise would have gone to the brake pads or to air resistance. Tires wear way faster on an EV, their lifespan in miles is generally much shorter.
> it's also that the regenerative braking means that the tires are dissapating energy that otherwise would have gone to the brake pads or to air resistance This does not seem correct... - Air resistance slows the car without putting anything extra through the tyres (the friction is between car and air rather than between tyre and road) - Regenerative braking channels energy into the battery, and also heat, that would…
EVs tend to use regenerative braking, thus applying road-tire friction, much more often than an ICE vehicle uses brakes. In an EV if you are going tobfast and let off the accelerator, the regen braking slows you. With tires. In an ICE car, you will coast along and slowly slow down, mainly due to air resistance, unless you actively press the brake.
If regen braking only happened when then EV driver pushes the brake pedal with their foot, your expectations would be correct and weight would be the only differentiator. But the single pedal driving design decision means the tires wear more.
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It varies by model, I know some lower end EVs from GM still use the breaks quite often depending on the driving mode.
I have an Equinox EV and the brakes do not get used often. They did a great job with blending kinetic regeneration with friction activation, but you can still feel the difference when it kicks in. They are active in reverse, to ensure that they are used and so that any rust gets cleared from the rotors. They also activate if you slam on the brakes or if the battery is at 100% charge and the kinetic energy can not be…
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The engines are absorbing the energy that would have otherwise gone to the brake pads. Tires apply the braking force to the ground in exactly the same manner on both EVs and ICE vehicles.
Firstly, the motors absorb half the energy. The other half goes to the tires. It would be great and efficient if the motors could.absorb it all but unfortunately physics doesn't work that way. Secondly, if you've ridden in an EV, you would know that the drivers/cruise control often apply regent braking in situations where an ICE vehicle would have simply coasted to a stop. Hence more wear.
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It is workable for far more people than will make it work. Particularly in tech jobs. The underlying issue remains that it is seen as a poor person option. As soon as people can afford a car, they get one. Back when I didn't have a car, my future wife and I saw a comedian that literally had a joke about being above the poverty line of "do you take the bus?"
The thing is, people are not ideological. If the car is 5x faster and nicer, then people will use it. People use what is convenient, most people don't pick public transport when it is 'workable' they pick it when it is actually good. And the reason it seen as 'for poor' people is because you only use it when you can't get a car. So the underlying issue is the overall quality of the service (frequency, reliability, co…
Again, I lived for over a decade with a tech job and no car. In Atlanta. It is easily doable. Especially for younger people that don't have a family. When I got married and we started having kids, I never had "my" car. Stayed on transit and cycling to get to work.
It is frustrating, because I would be surrounded by progressive people at work that would go on about why transit doesn't work. But... it did. Just fine. You just can't also have a 4k square foot house at the same time. (I feel like I'm exaggerating, but that is literally the size of average home in some areas just around Seattle. My shared living in Atlanta was almost 1000 square feet. I remember dreaming of a 650 square foot "luxury apartment" someday.)