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

[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.

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.