heavier EV’s wear out tyres twice as fast as ICE cars
Last week I told Mark Steyn that heavier cars would wear down tyres faster, which would vaporize more tyre chemicals in the air. And here we are a few days later with news stories saying that EV’s wear out their tyres 50 percent faster
This is not just inconvenient and expensive, and uses more oil, but unleashes as many as 200 different chemicals into the air and water as well.
With two billion tyres made around the world each year and the forced EV transition supposedly coming any day, it’s yet another problem to be solved “on the fly”, damn the consequences.
By 2050 there are estimates that tyres will be the worlds largest source of microplastics. Not so good for the corals and fishes, but who cares about them right?
If ‘greens’ ever want to start caring for the environment or the poor they could always cut half a ton of weight off an EV just by buying an internal combustion engine car instead. It feeds more plants than a lithium battery does too.
Reuters recently commented that:
Tyre-makers are under pressure to almost literally reinvent the wheel as regulators turn their scrutiny to tyre pollution that is set to surge with the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) and threatens to undermine those cars’ green credentials.
When tyres make contact with the road, tiny particles are abraded and emitted. The extra weight of EVs linked to their batteries means this little-discussed form of pollution – from an estimated 2 billion tyres produced globally every year – is becoming a bigger problem.
Emerging research is showing the toxicity of tyres, which on average contain about 200 components and chemicals, often derived from crude oil.
While critics say tyres contain many toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, so far there is only really consensus around one – 6PPD, an antioxidant and antiozonant found in all tyres that reduces cracking.
Developed during the Korean War, research shows that when 6PPD reacts with oxygen or ozone it forms 6PPD-quinone, which has been blamed for mass deaths of Coho salmon off the U.S. West Coast.
Particles from tires are expected to be the largest source of microplastics potentially harmful to aquatic life by 2050. Michelin estimates that globally tires emit around 3 million tonnes of particles annually – and create another 3 million tonnes of particles from road surfaces.
It’s just another unintended glitch on the road to ‘Green Heaven’.
A group called Emissions Analytics published a report comparing real-world tailpipe particulate mass emissions to tire wear emissions. And the emissions from wear-and-tear was apparently around 1,850 times greater than what comes out of the tailpipe. (Which shows how good those air filters and engineering is in cars).
Where are the environmentalists?
These issues of pollution are not being actively pursued by Greenpeace as far as I can tell, but by the free market — the tyre companies that want to brag about their better tyres.
See more here joannenova.com.au
Header image: Recyclind
Editor’s note: heavier EVs also cause more wear and tear on road surfaces, and most countries’ roads are in a poor state as it is. More frequent tyre changes also means more tyres need to be produced, and if we ‘just stop oil’ as alarmists want, where will the tyres come from?
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Tom
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Wacko environmentalists are actually more anti-human than anti-pollution. All of their wacky schemes never account for the laws of unintended consequences.
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Ghost of the truth
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EV with another example of madness of crowds. Their weight is long, but understood to wear down tires more quickly as well as the roads we all drive on. As such all of our insurance rates rise to cover the cost plus the incredible cost of repair when an electric vehicle is banged up and needs repair.
not to mention the environmental destruction at the front end of the back end of the supply chain to mine the minerals to build batteries, as well as the body of the cars, and then to dispose of them.
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D. Boss
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Come on people! Is everyone a dumbfounded idiot who writes this crap? EV’s are NOT heavier than their comparable ICE vehicles. Yes batteries are heavy, but an EV needs no engine, transmission, transfer case, differentials, axles, driveshafts which weigh as much as the batteries in an EV of the same class of car. The Tesla models and their Internal Combustion equivalents are all in the same curb weight class, differing by perhaps 400 pounds out of 5,000.
So no, based on hard science and logic, this EV’s eat tires faster argument carries no weight and the pun is intended.
Nor do tire compounds evaporate – they are deliberately made as inert as is possible which is why they last for 40-80,000 miles with punishing thermal, mechanical and UV exposure all trying to disintegrate their structure. (tires get hot at highway speeds, often too hot to touch, plus in city driving the brake discs are connected to the tire rim with steel, through the hub, and these get extremely hot, up to 800 deg F and this can migrate to the tires. Mechanically, it’s not just encountering bumps in the road but the sidewalls deform as the tire rotates so the tire bodies are constantly being flexed and deformed by the thousand pound load on each wheel for the average car, and sunlight tries to disintegrate any organic compound which is the bulk of what constitutes tires. – so tires are some of the most robust flexible materials mankind has every made which is borne out by how terribly difficult it is to recycle them – because they are so robust and relatively inert, immune to water, UV, and most chemicals too)
And the micro particle nonsense – tires are done once the tread approaches the wear bars. This tread thickness is a teensy, tiny proportion of the new tire mass. It is such a small amount that someone changing tires will not be able to tell if a tire is new or used by picking them up and feeling the weight. And this tiny mass lost as they wear, is spread over 50,000 miles and 3-5 years.
These chicken littles lamenting over tires have most of their facts wrong and are idiot alarmists who didn’t bother cross checking what they have been told.
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Howdy
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Ultimately, the rate of wear is down to the driver, as in all vehicle classes.
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S.C.
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A Kia EV6 mid-sized sedan weighs 5,000 lbs, about 2200 kg. This is more than a full sized Chevy Silverado HD.
The new Hummer EV weighs 10000 lbs.
EV,s are about twice as heavy as ICE vehicles of similar size.
This is a fact.
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Howdy
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Review of the EV hummer.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/driving-the-biggest-least-efficient-electric-car-the-hummer-ev-suv/
Thanks to the EU, at 4 tons, it’s out of reach of standard driving licences if the test was passed after January 1st 1997, thus requiring an additional licence. Passing before that date means you can drive a 7.5 tonner automatically.
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cn
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It is a well known fact that EV’s are a lot heavier than non EV vehicles . Of course if you get your info from the mainstream they will have you believe otherwise but the mainstream never reports the truth about anything .
Remember google will only link you to mainstream sources , many many years ago google would link to REAL news sources but those days are gone .
What do they use to make EV batteries = Coal.
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Dave
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ALL EVs are unsafe at any Speed!🔥🔥🔥
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