EV Tires Causing Increased Pollution

[IMDIDOC]

Earth.com posted an article that EV's tires are 20% more polluting. This is partially due to the weight and torque that release microplastics.
Hidden costs: Electric vehicle tires emit 20% more pollution • Earth.com

Are EV tires made of different compounds than tires for ICE vehicles? What about the F250 4 door full size bed that weighs more than the MME? Do they pollute? True they don't have the torque.

I wonder what the tire manufacturers would say.

Maybe it's just another article to show if you think your car is helping the environment and reducing global warming, you are very wrong.

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[dmastro]

Yes, the 250 creates a lot of tire wear and releases microplastics.

I think the point is not to compare a 3/4 ton truck to a passenger CUV, but to comparable ICE CUVs that weigh less and don't create quite as much tire wear.

The tire wear is just part of the overall equation of carbon footprint... battery materials, production methods and materials, weight and wear, etc and how it compares to the overall carbon footprint of ICE. I believe EV is lower overall.

Anecdotally, I seem to achieve fewer miles on a set of tires with my EVs than with the ICE cars I've owned in the past.

 

[timbop]

Yes, it is just one more way to try to discredit what is for all intents and purposes the only real choice for our grandchildren's future. I would suspect there is more microplastic in toothpaste released into the environment than EV tires (relative to ICE tires), but the oil companies are doing a very good job at funding "environmental" research. Suddenly there's an interest in dead whales struck by ships in the midatlantic, as if the only ships cruising the coast are building wind turbine platforms. Yet no one cares how often they're entangled in trawler nets.

 

[IMDIDOC]

Yes, the 250 creates a lot of tire wear and releases microplastics.

I think the point is not to compare a 3/4 ton truck to a passenger CUV, but to comparable ICE CUVs that weigh less and don't create quite as much tire wear.

The tire wear is just part of the overall equation of carbon footprint... battery materials, production methods and materials, weight and wear, etc and how it compares to the overall carbon footprint of ICE. I believe EV is lower overall.

Anecdotally, I seem to achieve fewer miles on a set of tires with my EVs than with the ICE cars I've owned in the past.

Yes, the tire wear is really not good on my friend's Tesla and an owner of a Hyundia reported spending over $1,000 for a new set of tires after 15,000 miles.

 

[timbop]

Yes, the tire wear is really not good on my friend's Tesla and an owner of a Hyundia reported spending over $1,000 for a new set of tires after 15,000 miles.

It very much depends how you drive. Mine are fine at 25k miles, but I don't feel the need to gun it at every light.

 

[mkhuffman]

The carbon footprint of my MME is 5.2.

 

[IMDIDOC]

The carbon footprint of my MME is 5.2.

Not sure what that means. Is that good?
I bought the MME because it's fun and high tech. Got to have fun in my old age.

 

[Mach1E]

Earth.com posted an article that EV's tires are 20% more polluting. This is partially due to the weight and torque that release microplastics.
Hidden costs: Electric vehicle tires emit 20% more pollution • Earth.com

Are EV tires made of different compounds than tires for ICE vehicles? What about the F250 4 door full size bed that weighs more than the MME? Do they pollute? True they don't have the torque.

I wonder what the tire manufacturers would say.

Maybe it's just another article to show if you think your car is helping the environment and reducing global warming, you are very wrong.

Probably pales in comparison to the carbon footprint of getting all these battery components from China and shipping them across the world.

The tire thing is an interesting stat, but at the end of the day, people are mostly doing all the wrong things when it comes to true environmental impact anyways.

Want to cut your carbon output in HALF with your car? Carpool to work.

Or how about getting a job closer to where you live (or moving closer to work)?

Or how about keeping that old car instead of buying a new one every few years? (Tons of negative impact in the production of a new car)

Or move out of a big city (big city = worse traffic, longer commutes and thus more pollution).

But instead? Many people do the opposite.

 

[jbooth]

Yeah big oil is publishing all sorts of FUD to try to preserve their firehose of profits.

Do the tires wear and thus pollute more? Sure. But you'll get less brake dust. Oh and no tailpipe emissions.

That said, I'm generally in agreement with the strong towns/not just bikes viewpoint that what we really need are less cars. Cars being defined by our current 4-wheel 2000+ lbs vehicles. Give me an electric enclosed quadcycle with a jumpseat, 20mph limit and dedicated infrastructure (eg bike lanes, ideally fully separated and ideally prioritized over car traffic) and I'd choose that over the car every single time. It'd likely be faster than a car as well. Bonus points for a good tram system.

 

[Mach1E]

Yeah big oil is publishing all sorts of FUD to try to preserve their firehose of profits.

Do the tires wear and thus pollute more? Sure. But you'll get less brake dust. Oh and no tailpipe emissions.

That said, I'm generally in agreement with the strong towns/not just bikes viewpoint that what we really need are less cars. Cars being defined by our current 4-wheel 2000+ lbs vehicles. Give me an electric enclosed quadcycle with a jumpseat, 20mph limit and dedicated infrastructure (eg bike lanes, ideally fully separated and ideally prioritized over car traffic) and I'd choose that over the car every single time. It'd likely be faster than a car as well. Bonus points for a good tram system.

At the end of the day it’s easier to just do something slightly better than to try to radically change behavior.

So while it’s impossible to convince people to live in a tent in a commune and live off the land, instead we will just have to get them to a little less damage.

All that matters in this argument is this:

Which is better (overall) for the environment? A BEV or equivalent PHEV or Hybrid or ICE? And tire wear apparently is part of the equation.

Yes, a bicycle is way better than any of those. But you’re not going from a Tahoe to a bicycle anytime soon.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

That's a nonsense, clickbait article.

First, every passenger tire out there has about 9/32" of wear on them before they're replaced. That's about 3600 cm^3 of material that will be used up for my CR-1 tires (89.9" in circumference, 8.9" wide, and 9/32" depth). That's about 2 kg. This is the same amount that will be used up by any other car with the same tires. The only difference is timeframe. Let's pretend like my tires are worn 20% more quickly, as the article states. For a 5-year period, I would use one extra set of tires, so that's 4 tires, 3600 cm^3 extra material per tire, or about 8 kg of material. That's the mass of material that's "extra" for an EV compared with an ICE when focusing on the tires.

Nah, you know what, let's go ahead and count the entire four tires and all their mass (about 73 kg each, so 292 kg for all four). Let's even get real wild and say that extra set of tires is burned, not recycled. That will emit about 2.9 kg of pollution per kg of tire. Let's round it up to 3 kg and round those four tires' mass up to 300 kg total. That gives us 900 kg of pollution, but let's round that up, again, to 1000 kg so it's a nice, round number. We really want to give the FUD a chance here.

I drive about 20,000 miles in a year, or about 100,000 miles in a 5-year period.

In that same timeframe, an ICE SUV with 25 mpg will have used 4,000 gallons of gasoline. A gallon of gas burned releases about 8.8 kg of pollution. Those 4,000 gallons of gasoline burned emit about 35,000 kg of pollution. This is rounded down--I'm trying to give the ICE the benefit of the doubt.

The efficiency of delivering energy to your car from an oil well is about 20%. That is, it takes about 4 gallons of gas worth of energy to deliver one gallon of gas to a consumer's car. This means a 25 mpg SUV causes about 5 * 35,000 kg of pollution over 5 years. This includes the energy of pulling oil out of a well, the energy required to transport the oil from the well to the refinery, the energy required to refine the crude into gasoline, and the fuel used to drive the tanker truck from the refinery to the gas station, among other things. But it doesn't include the tires worn down during any of that transport; we'll pretend the transportation vehicles don't wear out tires.

Of course, the EV isn't getting emissions-free energy. The efficiency of electricity delivered to the home is about 65%. That is, of 100 kWh generated, 35 kWh are lost (both before the generation of the electricity and after) and 65 kWh are delivered. This means that an EV driving 20,000 miles in a year, at an average of 2.5 miles/kWh, is using 12,300 kWh of energy. Let's assume all of the electricity is generated by burning natural gas. Natural gas generates 6.7 kWh per kg of natural gas burned, this includes all of the inefficiencies. 12,300 kWh / 6.7 kWh/kg = 1850 or so kg of natural gas burned in a year of driving. Each kg of natural gas burned generates about 2.75 kg of pollution. Let's round that up to 3 and round up the total mass of natural gas up to 1900. 1900*3 = 5700 kg of pollution emitted per year; let's round up again, just to be really hard on the EV, and call it 6,000 kg of pollution. Over 5 years, that's 30,000 kg of pollution caused by the EV.

Let's include the pollution from the battery. One estimate in the literature is that to mine materials, transport them, and to manufacture an 80kWh battery causes between 2400 and 16,000 kg of pollution. Let's double that high number to 32,000 kg, just for the sake of really beating on the EV's emissions.

Final tally, assuming all of the electricity fed to the EV is from burning fossil fuels.
EV: 63,000 kg of pollution over 5 years, including that one-time way-over-estimate cost of 32,000 kg for the battery.
ICE: 175,000 kg of pollution over the same 5 years.

But, yeah, let's worry about 8 kg of extra material caused by the extra weight on tires.

 

[2FlyMache]

That's a nonsense, clickbait article.

First, every passenger tire out there has about 9/32" of wear on them before they're replaced. That's about 3600 cm^3 of material that will be used up for my CR-1 tires (89.9" in circumference, 8.9" wide, and 9/32" depth). That's about 2 kg. This is the same amount that will be used up by any other car with the same tires. The only difference is timeframe. Let's pretend like my tires are worn 20% more quickly, as the article states. For a 5-year period, I would use one extra set of tires, so that's 4 tires, 3600 cm^3 extra material per tire, or about 8 kg of material. That's the mass of material that's "extra" for an EV compared with an ICE when focusing on the tires.

Nah, you know what, let's go ahead and count the entire four tires and all their mass (about 73 kg each, so 292 kg for all four). Let's even get real wild and say that extra set of tires is burned, not recycled. That will emit about 2.9 kg of pollution per kg of tire. Let's round it up to 3 kg and round those four tires' mass up to 300 kg total. That gives us 900 kg of pollution, but let's round that up, again, to 1000 kg so it's a nice, round number. We really want to give the FUD a chance here.

I drive about 20,000 miles in a year, or about 100,000 miles in a 5-year period.

In that same timeframe, an ICE SUV with 25 mpg will have used 4,000 gallons of gasoline. A gallon of gas burned releases about 8.8 kg of pollution. Those 4,000 gallons of gasoline burned emit about 35,000 kg of pollution. This is rounded down--I'm trying to give the ICE the benefit of the doubt.

The efficiency of delivering energy to your car from an oil well is about 20%. That is, it takes about 4 gallons of gas worth of energy to deliver one gallon of gas to a consumer's car. This means a 25 mpg SUV causes about 5 * 35,000 kg of pollution over 5 years. This includes the energy of pulling oil out of a well, the energy required to transport the oil from the well to the refinery, the energy required to refine the crude into gasoline, and the fuel used to drive the tanker truck from the refinery to the gas station, among other things. But it doesn't include the tires worn down during any of that transport; we'll pretend the transportation vehicles don't wear out tires.

Of course, the EV isn't getting emissions-free energy. The efficiency of electricity delivered to the home is about 65%. That is, of 100 kWh generated, 35 kWh are lost (both before the generation of the electricity and after) and 65 kWh are delivered. This means that an EV driving 20,000 miles in a year, at an average of 2.5 miles/kWh, is using 12,300 kWh of energy. Let's assume all of the electricity is generated by burning natural gas. Natural gas generates 6.7 kWh per kg of natural gas burned, this includes all of the inefficiencies. 12,300 kWh / 6.7 kWh/kg = 1850 or so kg of natural gas burned in a year of driving. Each kg of natural gas burned generates about 2.75 kg of pollution. Let's round that up to 3 and round up the total mass of natural gas up to 1900. 1900*3 = 5700 kg of pollution emitted per year; let's round up again, just to be really hard on the EV, and call it 6,000 kg of pollution. Over 5 years, that's 30,000 kg of pollution caused by the EV.

Let's include the pollution from the battery. One estimate in the literature is that to mine materials, transport them, and to manufacture an 80kWh battery causes between 2400 and 16,000 kg of pollution. Let's double that high number to 32,000 kg, just for the sake of really beating on the EV's emissions.

Final tally, assuming all of the electricity fed to the EV is from burning fossil fuels.
EV: 63,000 kg of pollution over 5 years, including that one-time way-over-estimate cost of 32,000 kg for the battery.
ICE: 175,000 kg of pollution over the same 5 years.

But, yeah, let's worry about 8 kg of extra material caused by the extra weight on tires.

You can tell we are getting closer to the tipping point for EV's with all this misinformation campaigns going on right now. There is a sense of fear in the air from the oil companies which stand to lose the most with this transition

 

[DevSecOps]

A liberal news person who writes for earth.com and MSNBC, writes an article that's likely true, but some people don't like it (not toeing the line) so she gets thrown under the bus on this forum. I think I said that happens last night in another post and I had someone disagree with me and say that doesn't happen around here.

Per earth.com:

"Earth.com is the premier internet destination for those who care about our planet and environment and want to make a difference ... Earth.com is for people who care about the Earth and have an interest in nature, the environment, and science. It’s for those who care about our planet and want to make a difference."

It doesn't take big brains to figure out that a heavier vehicle will go through tires faster and also deteriorate our roads faster. Additionally, cement is the #3 cause for greenhouse gases on this planet, ya know, the stuff we drive on. My R1T weighs 9000 lbs. A comparably sized Chevy Colorado weighs 4200, less than 1/2. So, logically 1 of my trucks is = to two of those trucks. A MachE weighs 4900 lbs vs an ICE mustang at 3500 lbs.

All her article is talking about is tires ... not the entire EV. She says that 20% more pollutants come from EV tires. I think that any reasonable person could probably agree in part with her assessment. I don't think "Big Oil" is paying earth.com liberal authors. Is it that hard to say "this could be somewhat true"?

 

[timbop]

You can tell we are getting closer to the tipping point for EV's with all this misinformation campaigns going on right now. There is a sense of fear in the air from the oil companies which stand to lose the most with this transition

Yes, but they are very good at disinformation. Hell, they kept lead in gasoline for 3 decades after it was exposed as a significant contaminant - and that was just an additive. In the internet age the speed of lies is 20 times faster.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Absolute numbers, not percentages. And specific examples, not averages that effectively apply to no one anywhere. It’s not rocket science, just sound analytics.

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