[ChiefNotAClue]

To those wondering about tire wear:

"Despite the slightly higher levels of tire wear from EVs, brake dust was found to be more unhealthy, as brake dust is much more likely to become airborne (>40%) than tire wear is (1-5%). So EVs create a lot less of the worse thing, and a little more of the less-bad thing."

[llampx]

I recently bought an EV and love it. I barely ever touch the brakes and the wheels stay clean, unlike my old BMW where the front wheels turned gray from brake dust very quickly.

Some comments here are looking for a 100% perfect solution, which doesn't exist. Transportation is polluting. Sorry but even public transportation is polluting, even if it is more efficient when its above a certain utilization. Where I live, some buses are EV and it is a joy to ride them compared to diesel ones.

With an EV there is less local pollution, less noise pollution, more dynamic response when needed and no need for wasteful oil "changes" where the old, dirty, useless oil doesn't just magically disappear.

[jvm___]

Is tire wear worse for aquatic life than brake dust?

[jabl]

There is an additive called 6PPD added to tires to prevent them from degrading in the atmosphere, and it has been found that when this thing reacts with ozone in the air it forms another compound 6PPD-quinone which is highly toxic to some fishes. Weirdly enough it's highly toxic to some species of salmon but not to other salmon species.

Presumably there's work ongoing to find an less damaging replacement, but I haven't heard of any.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6PPD

[cyberax]

Tire wear right now is worse, because tires contain an anti-oxidant that gets oxidized into a compound that is highly toxic to aquatic life.

The work is underway to standardize on a replacement. This time with even more tests.

[verisimi]

So it's even more good news. Yet another way EVs are better.

[HenryBemis]

It's not you, it's definitely me. I cannot tell if there is irony or a 'straight-faced' comment that you wrote.

Either way, like always, time will tell. We (humans) almost never 'get it right the first time'. And perhaps EVs have been around for quite a while now, it's still 'a while'. So I wouldn't be surprised if the lobby for "7PPD" (or whatever replacement) convinces us that "7PDD" is the best and even makes fish taste better, only to find out that it causes terminal cancer (see smoking, sugar, etc.)

[rasz]

unless you are a salmon

https://ecology.wa.gov/blog/january-2023/saving-washington-s...

[scuderiaseb]

So putting this aside, the elephant in the room is still the weight of the EVs, tire wear is one thing but the roads are also being worn at a much faster rate due to the weight of the cars. When EVs do have to brake and regenerative is not enough it needs to stop more inertia due to this high weight.

[JumpCrisscross]

> the elephant in the room is still the weight of the EVs

The elephant in the room for road wear are trucks [1]. Cars are almost negligible.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

[bryanlarsen]

A Tesla 3 is 5% heavier than a BMW 3. First generation ICE conversions were heavy. Cars properly designed from the ground up for EV aren't as much.

[tpm]

> the roads are also being worn at a much faster rate due to the weight of the cars.

Are they actually being worn out at a much faster rate because of more EVs? Do we have any data?