> If every car on the road were battery-powered and those batteries were charged entirely by renewable energy, transportation emissions would be close to zero.
This is entirely false. I'm surprised to see it in the NYTimes. They're only 0 when you factor out the cost of building the car and maintaining the highway, and those are still pretty high
I recommend reading it. It's actually pretty well done.
Secondly, the report itself and common sense dictate that regenerative braking on EVs (or hybrids) greatly decrease brake usage, therefore brake dust. Some EVs have "one-pedal" modes where you don't use the brakes at all in normal usage.
Looks like tire issue is a toss up, and it depends on what the type of tire and how you drive. The much higher torque on an EV and a heavy foot will wear down the tires a lot more, but that has more to do with driver behavior than EVs.
Also, this whole issue is kind of a red herring because tractor trailers and heavy pickups and SUVs are a much, much larger source of brake and tire dust, and overall particulate pollution.
You are dismissing the weight factor a bit too quickly. Many EVs regardless of their size weight as much as some ICE heavy pickups, especially as the trend of driving SUVs hasn't disappeared with EVs.
EVs don’t actually use their brakes that much due to regenerative braking being the dominant mode. They are certainly heavier, though, which affects road and tire wear.
Road wear is not an issue for 99% of consumer vehicles. Roads are impacted by loaded semis, not a 3-6k lb vehicle. Same goes for brakes as most EVs implement regen braking.
It's not false, it's misleading. Emissions are from exhaust only according to the EPA https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/smog-vehicle-emissions . Greenhouse gas and pollutants from building the vehicles and roads get lumped into another category. There is a valid reason for this, in that that's the main thing the EPA regulates with respect to vehicles, but it also lets people make misleading statements like this one.
that sounds right. Tire rubber microplastic generation would go way up, though, because of the vehicle weight.
I propose small motor scooters (as is common in asia) as the solution. Cars also take up a godawful amount of space, all the time. Especially in a city. That's the real harm, the tailpipe emissions are trivial compared to the space consumption.
Trivial compared to space consumption... in what sense? That sounds very difficult to compare. I also live in New Mexico, which is a huge state full of next-to-nothing but space, so perhaps I'm missing context.
There's some offset due to the increased weight from the battery pack. Highway driving is better, city driving is worse. Also, the tires emit more, since wear is also a function of weight.
The goal is zero carbon by 2050. So they might not be now but they should be in the future. Zero-carbon transportation is a large part of decarbonizing infrastructure.
Also, roads and tires are made out of the goopy parts of oil, so their manufacture impacts the price of the fuel parts of oil. Your EV's roads and tires make it cheaper for others to not buy an EV.
This is entirely false. I'm surprised to see it in the NYTimes. They're only 0 when you factor out the cost of building the car and maintaining the highway, and those are still pretty high