Vehicle brakes produce charged particles that may harm public health: study

[autoexec]

The problem of "brake dust" on human health and air quality has been known for a long time (https://phys.org/news/2020-01-air-pollution-effects-immune-c...) before that there were also issues with asbestos in brakes, but thankfully those haven't been used since the 90s as far as I know. This is the first I'm hearing about electrically charged particles though.

The bottom line is that proximity to traffic is horrible for your health and your air quality. Electric cars can help with some of the problems but don't solve all of them. The people with the least amount of money end up having to move to apartments near highways and so they often suffer the worst impacts, but I've seen very nice and expensive apartments and houses very close to (or directly on) busy streets. Noise is usually the obvious and immediate consideration, and I doubt many people are aware of the risks they expose themselves and their families to just by opening a window in the summer.

[jasonfarnon]

If you looked nationally at wealth vs proximity to traffic, I would wager the "people with the least amount of money" are not the closest to traffic; are you suggesting otherwise? If only because of all the wealth that has come to cities in the last 20-25 yrs. Within that already wealthy urban demo I would agree, yes, the poorer wealthy are nearer to urban highways and thoroughfare than the wealthier wealthy.

[hacker_88]

EV use of Magnetic Braking reduce brake wear by alot . With One pedal driving in city not using brakes at all

[HPsquared]

I've seen adverts for Chinese luxury apartments touting the built-in HEPA filtration systems. Seems to be a must-have if the air outside is polluted. Nobody seems to even think about this in building codes in the West. Especially, as you say, for apartments near major roads.

[wodenokoto]

> The people with the least amount of money end up having to move to apartments near highways

In Dubai prime real estate is along the major highway Sheik Zayed Road. It’s funny how these things can be cultural.

[highwaylights]

> before that there were also issues with asbestos in brakes, but thankfully those haven't been used since the 90s as far as I know

I’d be careful with assuming that. A lot of consumables are imported directly from China, and the cost of car maintenance can be eye-watering, so it’s exactly the type of part I’d expect to be procured as cheaply as possible.

People care about the brand of tyres on their car, I don’t even know of any brake pad brands.

[narag]

...but I've seen very nice and expensive apartments and houses very close to (or directly on) busy streets.

Some of the most expensive houses in my neighbourhood are the closest to the highway. I just tried to check, but none of them are for sale right now. Traffic only decreases four hours at night but it never really stops. Only the noise is a big no-no.

[onion2k]

Electric cars can help with some of the problems but don't solve all of them.

In the case of brake dust specifically, presumably electric cars are worse because they're quite a bit heavier than ICE cars.

[savrajsingh]

what about the NYC subway / PATH train? The air quality there is pretty bad -- the trains use standard brakes.

[ipqk]

And EVs make some problems worse, such as tire dust because they're heavier than an equivalent ICE car.

[daft_pink]

Just want to point out that most electric and hybrid vehicles use regenerative braking most of the time and only use real brakes at very slow speeds or in emergencies. So it might be totally misleading to say that electric vehicles are the problem, when they are probably the solution.

[Reason077]

Not only does regenerative braking itself reduce PM emissions, the reduced demand on friction brakes is enabling some EVs, such as the Volkswagen ID3 and ID4, to switch to drum brakes.

Due to their enclosed nature, drum brakes greatly reduce PM emissions compared to disc brakes.

[imbusy111]

The article has weird reasoning. If we remove tailpipe emissions, which are by far the largest, then brake/tire wear emissions become visible and are next in the list to deal with. But we won't deal with the latter before the former is dealt with.

[hristov]

Absolutely right. I had to change brake pads on my electric car at about 120 k miles. My previous gasoline cars usually had their brake pads last about the advertised 30K miles. Some people are complaining that the rear brake rotors of their teslas are rusting and looking bad. That is how little they are used.

Furthermore, it is entirely possible and probably desirable that some electric cars actually remove the brakes altogether (with the exception of an emergency brake that is only used in case of total system failure). Theoretically, electric motors should completely capable of doing all necessary braking. Of course there would have to be more emphasis on the reliability of the power electronics but it is doable.

[gleenn]

I didn't really see them picking on EVs terribly in the article but maybe I missed it? Agree that a lot of EVs have regenerative braking so they should in theory produce less charged particles from the brake and caliper interaction, which they mentioned.

[beezle]

Inspection station in my state made comment to me that EVs are failing inspection for rusted brake components because of their heavy use of regen. Add to cost of ownership.

[andbberger]

they still emit tire particulate emissions. moreso than ICE vehicles due to the increased weight

[api]

There's a whole load of anti-EV FUD going out right now.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

A startup I worked for years ago initially had a temporary office in a coworking space that catered to artists and craftspeople, in a renovated warehouse near the freeway loop downtown.

They didn't have air conditioning, which isn't particularly strange in the PNW, but we did learn opening the windows for breeze was a very bad idea. The amount of tire and brake dust/soot that would pile up in a single afternoon was disturbing.

We were only in there temporarily for a few months, but boy did it underscore to me how much of an unappreciated health and pollution hazard freeways are.

[Tade0]

I went to Switzerland once and as I walking over a bridge stretching above a highway, I noticed the smell of hydrocarbons and machinery in general.

It takes Alpine air as a point of reference to feel it, which says a lot about the ambient level of pollution in cities.

[kjkjadksj]

If you are within a mile down wind or so of a highway the increase of pollution is really significant. The same is true for very busy roads which unfortunately often means most of an entire urban area is at risk for health problems from pollution due to busy roads.

[beembeem]

> All you would need to do is to collect them with an electrostatic precipitator – a device that exposes the charged particles to an electric field and efficiently sweeps them away.”

How do they propose to do this? A little device mounted near each brake pad? A skim of the paper doesn't appear to show an opinion from them beyond citing this prior study [1]. The conclusion of the cited paper appears to show a progression towards a target:

> This study is our first step to install dust collectors in actual vehicles, in order to reduce the brake wear PM emissions. In this study, we evaluated the collection efficiencies of an inertial separator, an ESP, and a hybrid precipitator, independently. In the next stage, we will design a suction system that considers the structure and space of the brake system; then, the full dust collector system setup will be installed on a vehicle. At the final stage, the actual collection efficiency of the dust collector will be measured under various on-road driving conditions.

[1] https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/13/7/1121

[petre]

Too complicated, why not use a magnetic brake instead? The electric motor on hybrids essentially operates like a magnetic brake during regen. Works in 80% of the scenarios and for the rest of 20% we can just use the regular brakes.

[NoPicklez]

The credibility and purpose of the article was shot down when they said the problem would be getting WORSE with EV's. Firstly, the problem becomes less of an issue with EV's and they shared no evidence to support that moving to EV's would increase non-exhaust based pollution. Lastly, there have been plenty of studies over the last two decades which show charged particles from car brakes.

[Gabrys1]

There's probably more tyre pollution from EVs to be fair.

[lm28469]

EVs are 50%-100% heavier and a lot of them accelerate faster than supercars from the 80s...

[ThinkBeat]

This will come from all ground transportation sources, right? Busses, trains, trams, subways etc.

Probably the heavier the vehicle the more particles are likely to be produced?

[aceazzameen]

Being on or near a train platform and you can see brake dust caked on everything. Probably dust combined with grease. It's worse looking than roads.

[rightbyte]

Heavy vehicles like busses and trucks more often have drum brakes which I guess are better from a air pollution view?

[ninininino]

All wheeled ground transportation sources that use brakes. Legged vehicles and ground effect vehicles would not suffer from this problem, and we shouldn't necessarily assume the wheel will be the forever solution, we should not fail to dream.

[fddrdplktrew]

From airplanes, you get the lead from their fuel

[simne]

It is known problem. May be most researched is "brake dust" in tube, where it is literally seen with naked eye. Other place where "brake dust" seen but nobody care, in airplanes, may be because airplane brakes are not just emit dust, but literally smoke :)

[alcyone]

I didn't see an explanation of the effects that charged particles have on my health. This research and finding seems important but including some effects other than "pollution" would be great. Anyone have specifics?

[frickinLasers]

I think it's a poorly titled article.

The salient points for me were:

- Braking produces [probably] unhealthy dust.

- Much of that dust is electrically charged, meaning sweeping it out of the air (perhaps before it leaves the wheelwell) is easy.

It would be interesting to know whether inhaling charged particles is more or less harmful than neutral particles, though.

[Gabrys1]

> The new study reveals a problem that may grow as electric cars become more and more common over the next several decades.

EVs produce way less brake dust because manufacturers and drivers are obsessed with regenerative braking.

[briandw]

Break use on my EV is about once per trip. I have to stop after backing up and that seems to need the breaks. Honestly not sure if that's just a bad habit at this point or of regen doesn't work in reverse.

[incompatible]

I wonder what the air quality is like in and around racing car circuits, given brake, tire, and exhaust pipe emissions.

[adonovan]

It was especially terrible before 2006, which is when NASCAR's exemption to the lead ban finally expired, creating a perfect natural experiment to answer the question: how much did the health of people downwind of NASCAR arenas improve after the ban, and conversely, what was the dollar cost of the health externality of lead. Spoiler alert: more than $1000 / gram (approx. 1 tank of fuel).

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190654

[spike021]

I'd also be curious about brake pad composites.

In car brakes you can have slightly different designs/materials for pads which cause the balance of noise<->dust<->temperature performance to differ. For instance if you want to reduce dust emission, generally you get brakes that are much louder in my experience until they warm up but they are much "cleaner".

[alliao]

air filtration isn't expensive nor hard... last generation cleaned water, perhaps we should clean the air. start small, indoors and transportation, reduce exposure simple stuff and just gotta do it.

[u320]

Electric vehicles are heavier, which means they must spend more brake pads to stop. But they also use regenerative breaking, which reduces pad wear. So I'm not sure if they make it worse or not.

[techdmn]

I drive a Tesla Model 3, a few thoughts:

* I'm hard on brakes in general, but have over 70k miles on the original pads. Regen braking reduces brake use a LOT.

* Regen does NOT bring the car to a complete stop, the brakes are blended in below something like 5 MPH. The rotors are not going to rust away, they see action every time you drive. (Some surface rust is fine and normal, EV or no.)

* EVs can be heavier than ICE cars, and most are. There are many things I dislike about Tesla, but the Model 3 is a feather weight in the category. A comparison I like to make is to the AWS Dodge Charger, which is heavier by a couple hundred pounds. I won't even talk about trucks and SUVs.

[emsign]

We need to go back to horseback riding. It's inevitable.

[fddrdplktrew]

What about tire dust?

[_aavaa_]

Another day another set of researchers justifying their research which then gets spun as anti-EV FUD.

[wyldfire]

Why would that happen? EVs use their brakes much less often. when I read the article it occurred to me that this could eventually used to justify policy that would subsidize EVs more than they are.

[iancmceachern]

Tires too

[okokwhatever]

Ok, again another discussion about how cool EVs are because they're gonna save the world and blablaba. Why dont we talk about the size, weight and pollution produced by the process of building a battery and how many houses can be energized by the electric consumption of just one of this machines?

Just to balance the conversation, you know.