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Scientists: Electric Vehicles Produce As Many Toxins As Dirty Diesels (dailymail.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: Thanks to ongoing efforts to reduce engine emissions, nowadays only 10% to 15% of particulate emissions from traffic are coming from vehicles' tailpipes. The remainder originates in tire, road surface and brake wear. A study by Victor Timmers and Peter Achten published in Atmospheric Environment has now found that the extra weight of electric vehicles causes non-tailpipe emissions to increase by about as much as the omission of the internal combustion engine saves. Atmospheric particulates have been shown to cause cancer, cardiovascular disease and respiratory diseases and are widely considered as the most harmful form of air pollution. Achten said, "We found that non-exhaust emissions, from brakes, tires and the road, are far larger than exhaust emissions in all modern cars. These are more toxic than emissions from modern engines so they are likely to be key factors in the extra heart attacks, strokes and asthma attacks seen when air pollution levels surge." The study shows that non-exhaust emissions a vehicle produces is directly related to its weight. Scientists found that electric and eco-friendly vehicles weighed around 24 percent more than conventional vehicles, which in turn contributes to more wear on the tires.
Who knew that stuff was so deadly toxic? Really?
First off, electric cars use their brake pads less, not more. Regenerative brakes do most of the work, and the brakes last 2-3x longer than a regular gasoline car. Tire do last a little less long, but most of those are big particles, and I have never heard of tire dust being considered a major health risk.
Sounds like a hatchet job...
You have, of course, validated the parents point by not even reading TFS which clearly talks about particulate emissions.
Doing a two minute google search turns out the authors are an undergrad university student (according to LinkedIn) without a research background (google scholar turns empty), and a researcher with a company that develops combustion engines
Not to pull an ad-hominem here, but I'd take the paper with lots of grains of salt.
As a savvy owner of a Prius c hybrid, I think I have some insight into this... Basically, the brake pads *are* used quite a lot by aggressive drivers who tailgate and have to brake hard when the car in front of them slows down. People who drive with a proper following distance ahead of them will rarely have to use the disc brakes.
Hybrid vehicles (and EVs, probably) have smaller brake pads than similarly sized conventional vehicles (though the actual stopping power of the disc brakes in an emergency is just as good as regular cars). The brake pads are about half as thick on my Prius c as the brake pads on my Honda Civic. That's because the manufacturer expects you to use them less often. I'm sure there are some insane drivers out there who can burn through the brake pads on a vehicle like mine in well under 50,000 miles, but those same people would burn through the brakes on any vehicle just as quickly.
I've learned to "feel" the difference between the cut-over between regenerative braking and the disc brakes. The disc brakes slow you down WAY faster. There's not a discrete and obvious jolt when you gradually depress the brake pedal; it's incredibly smooth; but to use an analogy, as long as I'm slowing down at about the same rate as a truck can slow down when using the jake brake (engine braking - that loud "farting" sound that large trucks sometimes make when slowing down), I'm using the regenerative braking system only. If I'm slowing down much faster than that, the disc brakes are being engaged (the brakes and the regenerative braking can be active at the same time, unless you are braking at what would be considered "emergency" speeds, in which case the regenerative braking system disengages, perhaps because it can't handle that amount of torque or current).
As for the article itself: 24 percent?! That's total bullshit.
The Prius c is literally a Yaris Hybrid (it's marketed as such in some parts of the world). It's the Toyota Yaris -- a compact car -- with the Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive in it. So, it's a Yaris, *plus* the weight of the HSD.
The curb weight of the Yaris is 2335 pounds. The curb weight of the Prius c is 2500 pounds. That's only a 7.066% increase. That's a far, far cry from the 24% the article cites.
OK, you say, let's look at *electric* vehicles specifically, not just hybrids. Because hybrids don't have to lug around 500 pounds of lithium-ion batteries. Hybrid batteries tend to weigh under 200 pounds, with the smallest hybrids' ~1 kWh batteries weighing less than 100 pounds.
Let's take the Chevy Spark. The conventional Spark weighs in around 2270 pounds. The EV? 3000 pounds. That's a 32% increase for basically the same passenger and cargo volume. Fair enough. But 3000 pounds isn't out of this world, and is in the ballpark of many upscale compact cars like the (conventional) Honda Civic.
Another example. The 2016 Nissan Leaf weighs around 3150 pounds. I did some research to try and find a conventional vehicle with similar interior measurements (headroom, cargo space, etc.) and I came up with this: The 2016 Honda Civic EX has a total (usable) interior volume of 110.1 cubic feet with a curb weight of 2799 pounds. The 2016 Nissan Leaf has an interior volume of 116 cubic feet. So for 6 more cubic feet of interior (5.4% more), the vehicle weighs 351 pounds (25.4%) more.
Based on these limited comparisons, it seems like the article's claim about the increased weight of electric vehicles is factual. However, it is absolutely not valid to make the leap to saying that plug-in hybrids or conventional hybrids are anywhere near as bad in terms of added weight.
What I'm not convinced of, however, is the severity and environmental impact of tire and brake wear, regardless of vehicle weight. EVs and hybrids also run with low rolling resistance tires, which should reduce the amount of tire "stuff" in the air, in any case. Did they take that into account?
However, switching out a gasoline engine for a TDI diesel engine adds about 300 pounds to a sedan-
If you know about Evilsevier you should know about http://sci-hub.cc/
Here's the direct link to the paper.
And the brakes? Some number of tens of milligrams of brake dust?
Not even that. Electric cars use regenerative braking. So if an electric car going 100 kph needs to stop, the engine runs backwards to slow it down to about 10 kph, and the brakes just handle the last 10% of the speed reduction, but since energy is proportional to the velocity squared the brakes are only dissipating the last 1% of the energy.
Electric cars produce far less brake pad dust than gasoline cars, and the brake pads often are good for the life of the car. The fact that the authors include brake pad "emissions" indicates that they know nothing about how electric cars work, collected no actual data, and just made up their results to generate clicks.
http://31.184.194.81/10.1016/j... = Sci-hub link.
It's absolute garbage "research". Speculation layered upon speculation. It has the quality of a rant.
Victor Timmers is still getting his BEng. He was a research intern. Yay!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vi...
Peter A.J. Achten is a hydraulics engineer for INNAS.
http://www.innas.com/
Some gems from their trash:
"Despite the lack of direct research, there is significant indirect evidence..."
"Many studies and emission inventories suggest..."
But here's my favorite:
"It can be hypothesised that..."
WTF?
The paper is talking about particulate matter emissions. Your analysis makes sense, but you're mostly talking about gaseous emissions, so it doesn't contradict the paper.
Summary is sensationalist, though.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
4) Scrub Towers can be as tall, heavy, and complex as necessary to meet emissions guidelines since they're not driving down the road.
Since line loss is estimated 8%-15% and AC-to-DC happens at a charge station and (if it's like my PC power brick) should be 97% efficient. Battery efficiency is a measure of storage, so it's uninteresting unless considering vehicle weight. There is some loss in charging, but I'd imagine it compares to the evaporation losses in gasoline. This about-20% loss (slightly-more weight-considered) turns-out to be much less loss than gasoline's 85% loss in just its final step. And considering the electric motor doesn't need to "keep up" when not providing force (instant torque), it's even better.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
Can we have a reality check here!!!!???
The magazine is owned and run by Elsevier B.V.
The CEO is this guy:
https://www.elsevier.com/about/company-information/management/ron-mobed
Does --
"Ron is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors and of the Energy Institute. He holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from Trinity College, University of Cambridge and a master's degree in petroleum engineering from Imperial College, University of London."
--- this somewhat smack of propaganda, because my anal smoke detector went off!!!
And has anyone in the main stream media even done the fact-checking to spot the obvious conflict of interest? FUCK NO.
This is modded "Insightful"????
The DM took the report from The Sunday Times which was basing it's report on a study published in the journal Atmospheric Environment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.journals.elsevier.c...
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
1. Electric engines can go forwards and backwards. I have an EV and reverse is not a real gear, motor actually turns in reverse
2. I had a hybrid for over 7 years, after 50K miles I sold it with 80% original brakes - most of my braking was regenerative. So over the 50k miles I used up 20% of one set of pads.
3. In my current EV, I rarely touch the brake over 20mph. Most of my braking is pure regen, which by the way can easily generate >50KW of power (more than most homes) which is captured by the battery.
When those batteries get replaced they still have a lot of life left in them. What's the standard for replacing EV batteries? When they're down to 80% of the original range? With all that life left in them they can be moved to stationary installations where weight and volume don't matter so much and be useful for years to come.
They're taking into account regenerative breaking by assuming negligible PM emissions from the brakes of EVs. According to their literature study, most PM originates from resuspension which is linearly correlated to vehicle weight.
Their results (based on literature averages):
Comparison between expected PM10 emissions of EVs, gasoline and diesel ICEVs.
Vehicle technology Exhaust Tyre wear Brake wear Road wear Resuspension Total
EV 0 mg/vkm 7.2 mg/vkm 0 mg/vkm 8.9 mg/vkm 49.6 mg/vkm
65.7 mg/vkm
Gasoline ICEV 3.1 mg/vkm 6.1 mg/vkm 9.3 mg/vkm 7.5 mg/vkm 40 mg/vkm
66.0 mg/vkm
Diesel ICEV 2.4 mg/vkm 6.1 mg/vkm 9.3 mg/vkm 7.5 mg/vkm 40 mg/vkm
65.3 mg/vkm
The study doesn't look that bad. Would have been nice if they would have taken into account oil, electricity, car or road production as well.
The nice thing with my Tesla is I can charge virtually anywhere there's electricity. Granted, the superchargers take some time, but it's not a huge amount of time. Now, take the amount of time saved by charging every night. It takes only a few seconds to plug in and unplug vs the amount of time spent driving to one of a limited number of hydrogen refueling stations, waiting in line (if they're popular) and filling up. On top of that, the electricity is far cheaper than the hydrogen. Currently virtually all hydrogen is heavily subsidized since the actual price would not be cheap. Currently EVs are over twice as efficient compared to a hydrogen fuel cell car when once considers well to wheel. HFC vehicles aren't much better than hybrid vehicles when it comes to efficiency but they're still a lot more expensive to build. They have a very long way to go. Durability of the fuel cell stacks is currently about half that of a gasoline engine. A fuel cell stack as of the end of 2015 will need to be replaced at 75K miles. I did the math and the batteries in my Tesla will be good for at least double this. See this.
The 2016 Toyota Mirai, a subcompact, is only rated at 66MPG. A Prius is 58 city, 53 highway and costs less than half the price of the Mirai. BEVs are typically over 100 for a similarly sized car. For example, a 2013 Leaf is the equivalent of 115MPG, almost twice as efficient. My 3-year old Tesla, a much larger vehicle with a lot more passenger and storage room, is 89MPGe. The newer ones are even higher. The Model 3 should be considerably higher than that. Long term, I don't see HFC vehicles competing much against pure electric cars. The complexity alone means that they will always be more expensive, especially as the cost of batteries drops. The cost today of a Toyota Mirai is $58,335. This is for a car with 0-60 of 9.4 seconds and a top speed of 108MPH, not much better than a Prius. The Mirai will suffer the same problems as a Prius as well. The Mirai depends on a battery pack for acceleration and regenerative braking, just like a Prius. My last car was a Prius. It does poorly going up mountain grades and the Mirai will suffer the same problem. Unlike a Prius, the power output of the PEM stack will be considerably lower by 75K miles. A BEV car can put out considerably more power for a longer time since it isn't restricted to the limited output of the PEM stack. I've taken my Tesla up a number of steep mountain grades where my Prius would struggle without breaking a sweat. The Tesla Model 3 and other long range BEVs will cost considerably less than the Mirai. The Model 3 will also have considerably more room inside and storage space. The ONLY advantage the Mirai has is that it can be filled relatively quickly. In just about every other metric it falls short. Today I can take my Tesla most places in the country with the number of places I can't drive to without superchargers rapidly diminishing. By the time the model 3 rolls out the entire country will be pretty much covered. As it is, in California where most of them are sold, even out of the way places are getting covered. There's a charging station going in right near the entrance to Yosemite, for example and even highway 395 along the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains is covered.
Let's compare:
Hydrogen filling stations
vs
Plugshare chargers
Tesla Superchargers
Tesla Superchargers by the end of 2016 (click on 2016). This number should double by 2017.
The closest hydrogen fueling station to my house is 15 miles away from my house. My EV charging station is in my garage. This covers over 90% of my driving needs. I pay $50/month for the electricity and drive around 1000 miles/month. According to this article, the Mirai
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Not even close and I've got the freight scales to prove it. The fucking Tesla Model S-60 weighs 1961kg. A comparably-sized car would be the 2016 Taurus, at 1962kg.
25% my fucking ass, son.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Lies to prove your point, or just ignorance?
Taurus is a much bigger car than the Tesla for starters. And the S-60 has very low autonomy, but lets go with it.
Taurus specs: http://www.edmunds.com/ford/ta...
Tesla specs: http://www.edmunds.com/tesla/m...
The Tesla is 700lbs heavier than one of the heaviest sedans you could find for your comparison AND its a smaller car.
If you want to call bullshit, makes sure you smell your reply first.