Conspiracy theory: Electric cars make more air pollution than gas cars

Regarding transmission losses for electricity used to power electric cars: keep in mind that the fuel you use for your petrol or diesel vehicle <i>also</i> needs to be transported and hauling that stuff halfway around the world, refining it and then hauling it halfway across the country is a fair amount of expense which is reflected in the price of the fuel. This energy is lost too (it goes out of the stacks on the oil tankers and the trucks).<p>A round-trip Saudi Arabia to Rotterdam for a VLCC tanker carrying 250,000 tons would consume 40 days worth (20 there, 20 back...) of fuel burning 75 tonnes per day, so 3000 tonnes or about 1% give or take of the amount of crude that it transports. Crude yields <i>more</i> volume (but slightly less weight) after the refinery has done its job. Then you need to do the hauling from the refinery to the fuel stations which, depending on the distance from the refinery can easily consume another 2% or so (between 2 and 3 liters per km on flat terrain, so say on average 150 km x 2 for a round trip and a 25 ton net load is going to use about 600 to 900 liters of fuel). This is ~1&#x2F;40th of the volume the truck carries in payload.

I used to work in energy policy and you won&#x27;t be surprised to know that the national labs have already modeled this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;greet.es.anl.gov" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;greet.es.anl.gov</a><p>When last I looked&#x2F;remember electric vehicle emissions were much lower, but it&#x27;s not hard to imagine why one might think otherwise, given things like transmission losses, etc.

Headline is borderline clickbait. The article is about fine particulate pollution from tire and break wear, which is not the kind of &quot;air pollution&quot; most people are concerned about when we use the term.<p>From a microplastics perspective is it something we should be trying to deal with?<p>Unquestionably.<p>But the conversations around electrification are all about greenhouse gas emissions, and frankly, that&#x27;s the more immediate problem we should be concerning ourselves with.

The article misses the biggest reason why batteries (and EVs) are so heavy: it&#x27;s <i>because the cars themselves are heavy</i> [0].<p>The article notes &quot;Passenger vehicles already got around 35% heavier between 1980 to 2022&quot; but doesn&#x27;t note that this is despite the material we make cars out of getting lighter and thinner. Cars have gotten <i>enormous</i> and enormous cars take enormous (and therefore heavy) batteries to get equivalent range out of.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;qz.com&#x2F;2154558&#x2F;big-electric-trucks-and-suvs-are-the-new-gas-guzzlers" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;qz.com&#x2F;2154558&#x2F;big-electric-trucks-and-suvs-are-the-...</a>

Asbestos in brakes is bad but it&#x27;s a not really a concern even from. Chinese pads anymore, but there are still lots of harmful things they give off even still. Asbestos is just well known.

I mean that energy has to come from somewhere...

Completely ignore regenerative braking - bias? :<p>&gt; A car’s exhaust can put at most 1.9 mg of particulate matter into the air for each kilometer driven down. EU rules are slightly looser at 4.5 mg&#x2F;km.<p>Could brakes come close to that? Well, depending on the vehicle, disc brake pads have 100 to 400g of friction material. Perhaps 80% of that material is worn away before replacement, which happens after something like 65,000 km. Assuming 200 g of friction material, that suggests an average of<p><pre><code> 4 brakes × 200 (g&#x2F;brake) × 0.8 &#x2F; (65000 km) = 9.8 mg&#x2F;km </code></pre> of material lost from brakes.

Okay, so it is a clickbait title that “disproves” the claim.<p>The bigger issue, in my opinion, is what about all the energy needed to recharge the batteries? Last I checked, most of that still comes from fossil fuels.<p>In addition, what about the environmental impact of mining lithium and other minerals to produce the cars? This article goes into that a bit:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;therevelator.org&#x2F;ev-batteries-seabed-mining&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;therevelator.org&#x2F;ev-batteries-seabed-mining&#x2F;</a><p>I think there is a non-zero chance that when all is said and done, electric vehicles actually are worse for the environment than fuel powered vehicles.<p>There is also so much we don’t know. I feel like in one way or another, human efforts to “solve” climate change will ultimately be what leads to our extinction. Whether that is trying to send things into space to block out the sun, or mining oceans for rare metals to use to make batteries. Fun fact, the oceans actually suck up a <i>huge</i> amount of carbon dioxide. It would be pretty fitting if human mining efforts at the bottom of the ocean throw that balance entirely out of whack.<p>This is one of the problems with government mandates related to electric vehicles. All of the metrics they use to measure success are based on emissions while driving, but that is only one small part of the picture.