Electric Cars Are Not the Answer To Air Pollution, Says Top UK Adviser (theguardian.com)

Cars must be driven out of cities to tackle the UK's air pollution crisis, not just replaced with electric vehicles, according to the UK government's top adviser. From a report: Prof Frank Kelly said that while electric vehicles emit no exhaust fumes, they still produce large amounts of tiny pollution particles from brake and tyre dust, for which the government already accepts there is no safe limit. Toxic air causes 40,000 early deaths a year in the UK, and the environment secretary, Michael Gove, recently announced that the sale of new diesel and petrol cars will be banned from 2040, with only electric vehicles available after that. But faced with rising anger from some motorists, the plan made the use of charges to deter dirty diesel cars from polluted areas a measure of last resort only. Kelly's intervention heightens the government's dilemma between protecting public health and avoiding politically difficult charges or bans on urban motorists. "The government's plan does not go nearly far enough," said Kelly, professor of environmental health at King's College London and chair of the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, official expert advisers to the government. "Our cities need fewer cars, not just cleaner cars."

Comments

Not THE answer

[Mr D from 63]

This is no single answer. Not EVs, Not solar and wind, not nuclear, no single answer. They can all help tremendously if approached properly. When one considers socioeconomic challenges, we need a lot more answers than we currently have in our toolbox, and we can't afford to eliminate any of the ones we have.

Re:Not THE answer

[ctilsie242]

At least with EVs, we can figure out what to use for electricity. If there is a new fusion development, it can be used and immediately change the CO2 profile across large areas. Similar if thorium reactors, or even Gen IV reactors become the norm. With IC engines, we have to replace them individually.

The trick is that we can keep improving. There is no single magic bullet, but if we replace a coal base plant with solar + energy storage, it helps things a little bit. Similar with adding wind capacity, instead of having to add a biomass plant.

Re: Not THE answer

[freak0fnature]

The article isn't even complaining about CO2 or global warming... it's talking about real pollution.

Re: Not THE answer

[dugancent]

I'll be happy to listen to what you have to say

No you won't. There is ample amount of evidence and has been for years and what could get posted here makes no difference. You choose to ignore it then start arguments that will go nowhere.

Troll elsewhere.

Re:Not THE answer

[Grishnakh]

The other thing with EVs (and hybrids) is that they don't generate as much brake dust as regular cars, because they use regenerative braking much of the time.

In addition, the thing about brake dust sounds ridiculous to me. Modern brake pads don't even have asbestos in them, and the total volume is rather small (go look at some yourself, I'm sure the guy in Autozone will be happy to show you some). Those pads last a minimum of 30k miles, probably at least 50k up to 100k. Considering how much air your engine is ingesting and expelling during that much time, that volume of brake dust is minuscule. Same with tires. The problem with cars is the exhaust emissions; brake dust probably isn't healthy to breathe in in large quantities, but that's a far far lower concern than engine emissions, so much lower it's really laughable to consider it while we still have hundreds of millions of cars burning gas and diesel and spewing out noxious emissions from that.

We can certainly use better public transit, and I've been harping on SkyTran for years now but everyone tells me I'm crazy and that we need to stick with cars. Honestly, at this point I'm just hoping for a planet-killer asteroid to put us all out of our misery because we're clearly too stupid as a species to live.

Re: Not THE answer

[ShanghaiBill]

The article isn't even complaining about CO2 or global warming... it's talking about real pollution.

TFA is written by someone that doesn't even understand how electric vehicles work. EVs emit very little dust from brake pads, because they use regenerative braking (running the engine backwards to recharge the battery) and use the brake pads for only the last 10% of deceleration. Since energy is proportional to the square of the velocity, this last 10% of velocity is only 1% of the energy. Brake pads on EVs have so little wear that they last the life of the car.

Tire/Tyre wear is a concern because EVs have much higher starting torque. Tesla owner often report accelerated tire wear. But this is something that could be mostly solved in software, by controlling the torque. This would likely be unpopular.

Anyway, I am sceptical about whether "tire dust" is really a significant problem compared to tailpipe emissions. The sounds like silly alarmism to me, and makes me wonder if someone with an ulterior agenda is pushing this FUD.

Re: Not THE answer

[AlanObject]

Won't electric cars use mostly regenerative braking in cities, making this point moot?

I have been driving a hybrid mini-SUV since 2008 and have 120,000 miles on it. I replaced the disc pads once and they were only 20% worn. (I wouldn't have replaced them at all but I was getting a package service deal.)

I would expect an electric car to have about the same brake wear.

Ok. Get rid of cars...

[Jhon]

I'll just get a little red wagon and have my dogs and cats pull me.

Oh wait...

Apparently has never heard of regenerative braking

[gweihir]

Sure, tire-dust is still there, but braking is done regeneratively in any sane electrical car design and conventional, particle-generating brakes are only there for emergencies.

Easy answer

[DontBeAMoran]

Remove all the air, that way it cannot become polluted.

Perfect is the enemy of good

[sjbe]

Prof Frank Kelly said that while electric vehicles emit no exhaust fumes, they still produce large amounts of tiny pollution particles from brake and tyre dust, for which the government already accepts there is no safe limit.

Sigh. Another example of perfect being the enemy of good. No solution is going to be without some drawbacks. Electric cars are CLEARLY an improvement over internal combustion engines if for no other reason than the fact that they can be powered without fossil fuels. No they don't solve everything but that's not an excuse to not move forward. We're going to be using cars for the foreseeable future so we may as well make whatever improvements we can to them. EVs and hybrids are an improvement. Let's take that step and then take the next one when we are able.

"Our cities need fewer cars, not just cleaner cars."

That's fine but probably not going to happen without some VERY substantial investments in public transit.

Re:Perfect is the enemy of good

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Perfect is not the enemy of good. Perfect is the greatest equalizer. You are not perfect, you have thrown an empty candy wrapper in the park. Jeffery Dahmer is not perfect, for killing and eating a few people. So you both are basically the same imperfect people.

Re:Apparently has never heard of regenerative brak

[whoever57]

"can" and "does" are two different things.

Take the example of the Nissan Leaf. It can recover approximately 80% of the energy under regenerative braking, but, it has a hard limit of 30kW of regenerative braking. If you brake sufficiently hard that it puts out more than 30kW, then the car is going to use the conventional brakes as well as regeneration.