EPA Sets Strict New Limits On Tailpipe Emissions That Could Boost EV Sector (nypost.com) 282
sinij shares a report from the New York Post: The Biden administration finalized its crackdown on gas cars Wednesday, with the Environmental Protection Agency announcing drastic climate regulations meant to ensure more than two-thirds of passenger cars and light trucks sold by 2032 are electric or hybrid vehicles. The EPA rule imposes strict limits on tailpipe pollution, limits the agency says can be met if 56% of new vehicles sold in the US are electric by eight years from now, along with 13% that are plug-in hybrids or other partially electric cars. That would be a huge increase over current EV sales, which rose to 7.6% of new vehicle sales last year, up from 5.8% in 2022. [...] The new rule slows implementation of stricter pollution standards from 2027 through 2029, before ramping up to near the level the EPA preferred by 2032. "Personal car ownership is about to get A LOT more expensive as it will have to carry the costs of deep discounts to entice EV sales," adds Slashdot reader sinij.
Unintended consequences (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, keeping cars on the road longer reduces manufacturing-related emissions, so
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Batteries DO keep getting better, and as for what is available... we're not even at the limit of what has been more or less proven in the lab.
I need to be able to go 400km on a single charge, including keeping me cool in summer or warm in winter, with capacity to get me through a snow storm where I'm crawling along at city speeds on the highway. Not that I need it that often, but I do need it. If I could get a very inexpensive car that could do 80 km on a charge (plus safety margin) - say an Arcimoto FUV
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What is keeping us from affordable electric vehicles is legislation that says they have to go at bicycle speeds, be classed as a motorcycle, or meet the same standards as a full highway-capable car.
EVs have essentially reached price parity with ICE cars, largely due to inflation raising the price of ICE vehicles while largely not having quite the same effect on EV pricing. The Bolt EUV (granted, it's been temporarily discontinued) starts at roughly the same price as a Toyota Camry, and that's ignoring the tax credit. If you do qualify for the tax credit, it's actually among one of the cheapest new vehicles you can buy today (assuming you can find any dealers that still have remaining stock).
If you'r
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Batteries DO keep getting better
The problem is even if solid state batteries are as good as they say they will be, how common will be the chargers that can send the electricity into them that fast?
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As someone that owns an electric car now and has driven almost 20k miles in the last 12 months ...
I charge 98% of the time in my own garage with my own charger. The times I have gone on longer trips, I've stopped at DC fast chargers and the experience wasn't bad. I plugged in, went into the rest stop area and visited the restroom, bought a snack and/or a drink, came back out and had a couple minutes left on the charge cycle. Basically the same amount of time I would have spent with a gas fill up.
Now, gra
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Being broke I'm just happy my state hasn't required emission testing, and now according to state website only 13 areas around 1 city will require it for new vehicles only. That's one sorta benefit for driving an old vehicle.
I still drive my 1995 Chevy S10 5 speed manual transmission everywhere the past 20 years although another old vehicle I used to have was a 1984 Camaro which I gave to my son. The good gas mileage on that truck has extremely helped with the high gas prices, the insurance only cost
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Does. Not. Compute. I mean, I guess it's good in the realm of pickup trucks. But it's still only 23-26 mpg under realistic conditions. That qualifies as good?
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For a truck that is spectacular gas mileage. The manual transmission helps, but the big difference is that it just isn't that big. Our current regulations make small trucks like the S10 infeasible. That's the sort of unintended consequence that is likely to make this 30 year-old vehicle even more desirable in the future.
And before you mock his gas mileage remember that he has been getting that gas mileage since 1995 when 23 MPG was even more amazing. That vehicle cost around $10k new, is far less expe
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Since the regulation only applies to new cars, we might expect used ICE cars to stay on the road longer if new EVs are too expensive/impractical.
Of course as ICE cars get harder to get the people who own the existing ones will try to extend their lives as long as possible. At some point there will be (more) calls for outright bans. That much is quite predictable, but not necessarily a given depending on voter behaviour.
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Rising cost of gas may help if cost of electrical energy stays low.
EVs have come a long way (Score:3)
but they still have a long long way to go. I understand the enthusiasm, and trying to nudge industry forward with impossible emissions targets, but 2035 was a pipe dream, 2032 is someone smoking from the wrong pipe.
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The relative scale is irrelevant. Norway has roads long enough that you need to charge multiple times on them. They have chargers so you just stop and do it.
There will always be special cases where ICE is absolutely required, but for 99.99% of people current EVs are more than adequate. Charging infrastructure needs improving, but I don't see any reason why that can't be done for 2035.
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It's probably not that uncommon in Norway, given that Oslo is the main international airport and many places are more than 4 hour away from that.
If you can't do the obvious thing and set of a little earlier, the good news is that in real-world tests done by Bjorn Nyland on a wide range of EVs, the better ones only require less than an extra hour over 1000km, which is a 10 hour trip in Norway. That's compared to a reference fossil car, with food breaks subtracted out. It's been noted that the best EVs charge
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There's always some dumb excuse why it can't work in the US. The reality is that Norway is a large country with some long distances to cover, in extreme weather.
So tell us, why does having a bigger population mean that the US can't end EV sales over a decade later than Norway practically has? Do you think there won't be enough lithium to go round or something?
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The north is in the Arctic Circle, and regularly goes well below zero. Norway is more than big enough to tax prove any EV.
The rest are just excuses. So what if Canada has a long ice road. Why does that stop the 99% of Canadians who never drive all the way along it from buying an EV? Why does it stop Canada installing charging infrastructure on it? There are EV incentives in the US too. Despite the existence of trains, many Norwegians still own cars.
Why does any of this prevent the US (or Canada) from ending
Okay, but ... (Score:3)
"Personal car ownership is about to get A LOT more expensive as it will have to carry the costs of deep discounts to entice EV sales," adds Slashdot reader sinij.
[citation needed]
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But insurance rates which still have to account for the replacement cost without a tax payer funded discount, inflation is still not under control, and cars are just generally more expensive thanks to feature, nanny, and safety bloat.
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You should read beyond headlines. EV sales did not increase at the same rate they did the year before, but they still INCREASED. That is, the rate of growth slowed but it was still growth.
The market is not saturated, with a few exceptions -- Tesla being the largest -- many EVs in the US are first generation and need to mature. And they also focused on large, high-margin vehicles like pickup trucks and SUVs. Once they actually address the rest of the market with small and mid-sized cars, adoption should acce
Vans going to get popular (Score:2)
With vans being classed for higher emissions I foresee a shift from pickup to vans, so at least the vehicles will get more practical.
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Gosh, I don't think that at all. Look at how much more people are paying for gas for their gas guzzler nowadays compared to 20 years ago https://www.creditdonkey.com/g... [creditdonkey.com] and the number of large truck owners has only increased in this country since then https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]. . There is certainly a gas price limit people are willing to endure to drive their giant trucks we don't seem to be close to it yet.
Much like a Harley part of the appeal of giant trucks is cultural as if efficiency or cost
Bah Idiot. (Score:2)
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Honey badger don't care. Buy an EV, peasant!
It's surprising people still don't get it. (Score:2)
The solution is obvious and this is how it will go down - plug in hybrids. My SUV from Ford goes 25 miles on a charge and almost never uses gas unless I drive cross country. Moreover it puts much less
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Re: It's surprising people still don't get it. (Score:2)
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It surprises me how many people have an opinion on something they have never owned.
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Re:It's surprising people still don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mandated EVs would require multiple chargers in their driveways.
No, it wouldn't. I say this as someone who has your exact scenario -- multiple EV vehicles in a driveway, often for people who merely drive in to to school/job. Because my vehicles are usually driven less than 20 miles a day, not including weekends, one charger works fine because topping off the charge on a car takes only and hour or two. More if I use the glorified-extension cord L1 trickle charger, but with minimal usage like your example cars can go a week or more without charging so swapping spots every other day or so to ensure the cord reaches is trivial.
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The scenario presented was charging at home with multiple EVs, so don't move the goalposts with not charging at home being an issue. That's a different question with a different answer.
My one charger is in the center, at the end of my driveway. The cable reaches both vehicles without issue. My EV is more convenient than ICE ever way. Every day I leave fully topped off, which never happens with an ICE vehicle. I don't have to wait for my vehicle to warm up before driving, or worry about the engine oil not be
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You know EVs have a charge gauge similar to a fuel gauge, right? No fire drill necessary. End of day, plug car in. First ride, unplug car. Other car is wife's/kid's issue and they just unplug mine and plug theirs in if needed. Oh, and there are apps for that.
Again, with the limited mileage the average American puts on a vehicle (~ 30 miles a day), there is no "keep up". No anxiety of "do I have enough charge". Just drive the car, charge when you need to if you go far, plug in when you get home. It really ju
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The ICE in such a hybrid is not exposed to constant drastic rpm changes because there is no stepped transmiss
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CAFE standards for SUV (Score:3)
Forcing the car makers to follow CAFE standards for SUVs, which ARE NOT TRUCKS, would be a major help.
Along with requiring a higher standard to own and drive a monster truck that you have no idea how to drive in a city.
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> The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants
The blood of unarmed civilians and schoolchildren is used for watering it, I guess, seeing as that appears to need doing far more frequently.
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It means that democracy must be continually defended against those who would seek to undermine it, and that inevitably such conflicts lead to casualties on both sides.
Some people, however, have interpreted it to mean "when the government no longer serves you, overthrow it." The results of the Civil War should've laid that one to rest, but you know what they say about people who fail to learn from history.
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Makes comparatively brief civil wars seem relatively tame.
Re: nice to live in a dictatorship (Score:2)
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Kim Kardashian has more impact on American culture than Jefferson.
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Oh please.
Emissions standards and transitioning to electric are no different from regulating power plant emissions or banning leaded gas or asbestos or CFCs or mandating smog checks. Yeah, there are still a few troglodytes out there keeping pre-197whatever relics running because having to pass smog is pinko gay communism that makes the baby Jesus cry, blah blah blah something something muh freedumbs. But those people, and their coal-rolling EV-hating compatriots, are merely edge cases. And you do not sacrif
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I still don't think that it was a good idea to politicize EV ownership like this. EV's used to be the "new and cool" thing to buy, but now that the Democrats are basically trying to force people to switch to EV's over the next ten years you're going to have tens of millions of Trump supporters refusing to buy them just for political reasons.
Congratulations, you just made owning something like a 1987 Ford F-150 with a leaky exhaust and a Trump bumper sticker on the back the "cool" vehicle of choice in Republ
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You are mistaken, this is not progress, this is pure dictatorship.
Only if you disagree with what is being regulated. Anything else Fox Entertainment has told you to whine about to spread FUD?
Re:nice to live in a dictatorship (Score:5, Insightful)
You are mistaken, this is not progress, this is pure dictatorship. There is nothing progressive about Lithium Ion batteries for example. Just because green or white paint is used on some battery pack, doesn't make it any more green in a country where most electricity is produced by natural gas and coal.
You are wrong. A Tesla Model 3, at 4.17 miles per kWh, powered exclusively by the least efficient coal plants (1689 g CO2 per kWh), produces about 405 grams of CO2 per mile. The average gasoline-passenger vehicle emits about 411 grams of CO2 per mile. EV efficiency only gets better from there.
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Hahaha. What world do you live in where ICE cars or the refining process for gas doesn't use rare earth metals and where the United States hasn't supported horrible dictatorships in the name of cheap gas? It's certainly not this one.
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It’s amazing how you think that drilling for oil is somehow less harmful than mining for battery materials, when it is absolutely the other way round by several orders of magnitude.
It's also worth noting that raw materials used in batteries are trivially 100% recyclable and thus reusable to make future cars. The environmental impact of mining to make raw materials happens once, and those raw materials are reusable for centuries. The environmental impact of pumping oil happens over and over again for the entire lifetime of the car, and the material has to be continuously replaced.
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It's also worth noting that raw materials used in batteries are trivially 100% recyclable and thus reusable to make future cars.
Oh sure, and where exactly does that happen in actual, you know, real reality? Pretty much nowhere? Oh, guess it's not all that "trivial" after all.
It is absolutely trivial, and is done every day for smaller batteries. But there aren't enough of these large car battery packs to recycle yet, so it isn't economically feasible to do so. Until there's a steady flow of failing batteries, it would be financial suicide to build the plant and have it idling most of the time.
Ah, so the typical egghead "trivial" of "hey, I got this cool thingy to work in my lab, the rest is just business and economics which is trivial in comparison, right?". Well, no it isn't. That's why people who can do business well tend to drive better cars than people who can do science well.
I think it's safe to say that I know a lot more about the business than you do, if you're saying stuff like that.
Here's a dose of reality: One million tons of lithium ion batteries are being recycled every year. This isn't an "in the lab" situation. That's real-world large-scale recycling. It's only about 5% of the lithium ion batteries out there, but that's mostly because it's hard to convince people to recycle much of anything when you can just throw it away.
But for car batteries, obviously people ca
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Citation required
The general consensus is that the entire environmental impact of lithium battery manufacturing is canceled out by the time the vehicle hits the 15k to 30k mile mark, typically, depending on the local power grid's energy mix. So clearly drilling for oil and then burning it is way more harmful than mining battery materials over the lifetime of a vehicle, on average.
That said, you're probably technically correct that drilling for the oil and then *not* burning it would have less environmental impact than batt
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Really? You need a citation to be sure that drilling for oil is in fact orders of magnitude more harmful than mining for battery materials? How embarrassing to not be able to figure from first principles.
1. An ICE vehicle burns its own weight in fossil fuel each year, on average, while an EV's battery materials are very much not used up each year. In fact, they are permanently available once extracted.
2. Perhaps you need to look into the history and present day experience of fossil fuel extraction, as you s
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It is not the cost of it that stops me, I like to enjoy my freedom to drive whatever I can purchase and I am not going to be slowed down by charge times.
If you're really in a hurry to get somewhere, you take a flight instead. I live in FL and have family in NC and factored this in as part of my decision on whether or not to trade in my previous econobox for a used Bolt, since it meant that the only ICE vehicle remaining in my household would be a van that gets 14 MPG on a good day (in most cases, it's significantly cheaper to fly than take that vehicle on a road trip). The reality was, even though I could economically make the trip in my previous ICE car,
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Re:nice to live in a dictatorship (Score:4, Insightful)
It always amuses me when Europeans say, "just do this thing that we do! We figured out everything!" with no understanding how different the US is. The entire continent of Europe combined is slightly larger than the US. We have vast areas of very rural small towns and farm land with extremely low density intermixed with very high density cities, surrounded by vast suburban spaces. The economic connections between the rural areas and cities are minimal, meaning the city folk never visit rural areas and rural people don't go to cities. To go from one country to another in Europe is similar to going from one state to a nearby state in the US. Crossing the country is similar to crossing all of Europe. How often does someone in Europe take a train between the two most distant points in Europe? In the US cross country flights and drives are quite common. We have cross country trains. They're minimally used for passengers because it's a shitty and uncomfortable way to go. We fly or drive for a reason, not because we're stupid and don't know what trains look like.
We are not like you. Your solutions do not apply here. We are not just Europeans with a funny accent and more guns.
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Re:nice to live in a dictatorship (Score:4, Interesting)
It always amuses me the lengths some conservatives here will go to make Europe seem like some completely alien place so they can then thumbs down successful policies they have over there when they come up over here.
I'm guessing you haven't spent much time in Europe. People there travel between countries a lot. Most Europeans speak several languages and with English becoming the common tongue over there that makes it even easier to move around. On top of that they get a ton more vacation time than we typically do which just plain gives them more time to travel which many take advantage of.
Furthermore, we have a very similar population spread as them with Nordic countries (note, not just Norway and it's enormous sovereign fund) which have successfully implemented wide scale EV ownership having very similar population spreads to places like the Midwest in the US not to mention very similar weather and our North East being fairly similar to their more density populated areas.
Honestly, I don't see anything in your post that means European solutions can't be tried here in the US as the only things unique to the US in your post are your "guns and funny accents" and I see a lot of misunderstandings on what Europe is or how Europeans live as it's not some cultural and demographically alien place to America.
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Re: nice to live in a dictatorship (Score:3)
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Not all road trips are cross country, nor does flying makes sense.
If I want to visit a friend 3 hours away in my vroom vroom, it's... 3 hours. If I want to do it in my model 3 I'd be passing through empty sections of state with no chargers so going around the energy desert would make it about 6 hours.
And driving is much more efficient than flying if you are going with other people or carrying more than a small carryon. I can get 5 people in a car and drive anywhere for way fucking less than flying there a
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OK. I thought this was blindingly obvious, but, what the heck, I will say it - yes, personal independence is *vastly more important to me than a marginal to nonexistent improvement in air quality*. And the principle of the government, particularly the federal government, dictating what we can and can't do and can and can't buy, and demanding that we subsidize a market looser for virtue-signalling purposes is fundamentally unAmerican.
Re:nice to live in a dictatorship (Score:5, Insightful)
People are dying from this air pollution. There are cases in the UK where air pollution has been cited as the cause of death.
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
It's estimated that in London somewhere between 4000 and 9000 premature deaths a year are due to air quality. The healthcare cost for treating it runs into billions.
Sorry, but my lungs and health, not to mention my family's, are vastly more important than you saving a small amount of time by not having to charge your car on a very long journey.
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You do realize your fight against having nuclear in an electric mix, alongside hydro/solar/wind, is far more harmful though?
This is the equivalent of an obese guy focusing on not putting salt on his pasta,while eating 10 cheeseburgers a day. I guess you can't even see the irony of some of your comments.
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Waiting 20+ years for nuclear is the most harmful thing. We can install solar and wind today, directly displacing coal, and the ULEZ in London has cut air pollution considerably.
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Why didn't the nuclear plants start getting built 2a years ago?
Why not start new ones today for 20 years from now?
What's your plan for night and no-wind days?
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Why didn't the nuclear plants start getting built 2a years ago?
It varies by region and instance but generally boils down to high up front costs (even if the amortization of power is cheap) and the NIMBY attitude of communities.
Why not start new ones today for 20 years from now?
This should really be 5, not 20, but again the reasons above are the likely culprit.
What's your plan for night and no-wind days?
Battery storage like the incredibly effective and cheap pumped hydro, or perhaps other battery technologies. Until those can be implemented, small natural gas plants are specialists in generating these intermittent load needs.
marginal gains for you, but the total matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, I can see that the inconvenience for you having to switch to a less polluting motor vehicle (or riding a bike or using public transit) are larger than the direct improvement in air quality for you from exactly you switching. However, we as a society *have* to be able to handle such situations, where the individual does not gain directly from doing something desired, but the sum of each such individual action or non-action making a huge difference.
Like climate change, where the ability to grow crops, live comfortably or avoid huge refugee crises is at stake. Or air quality, where thousands of people die each month in conditions related to pollution. We have to be able to ensure that one persons actions does not impact others negatively, even if the mechanism is through the sum of small actions, not individually directly disastrous actions (like drunk driving).
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I live somewhere where the air is usually good. Now the last couple of years has seen major forest fires producing unclean air for a couple of months a year and this year looks like it will be similar.
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Look, you don't have to go all reee about it. You don't get personal independence with any kind of car. They all require you to be dependent on a system because you can't reasonably make your own parts, or for the vehicles so old and simple that you could, a) you would need a machine shop, sheet metal shop, etc etc whch most people can't afford and b) the ownership experience would be poor. But with that said, it's a hell of a lot easier to make electricity at home than to make gasoline or even diesel fuel.
Re: nice to live in a dictatorship (Score:2)
Re: nice to live in a dictatorship (Score:5, Informative)
Tailpipe emissions are about 1,100 million metric tons.
https://www.bts.gov/data-spotl... [bts.gov]
US military emissions are 51 million metric tons.
https://www.theatlantic.com/sc... [theatlantic.com]
So, a 5% reduction in tailpipe emissions is actually more than all military emissions. And it's not like they could practicably be reduced to zero.
Private plane emissions hardly even register. Nobody even seems to publish figures on total private plane emissions. Only per-passenger-mile stats. In other words, that's an argument about fairness (i.e. an excuse to do nothing) not bottom-line impact.
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If the EPA rules survive legal challenge.
Re:Let me break this down (Score:4, Insightful)
Congratulations on winning the Gish Gallop for the day.
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Sputter! Sputter!
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Ditto.
Inside joke there.
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EVs make this worse because they burn through tires faster because of the extra weight and because they tend to use low resistance tires in order to reach their efficiency numbers and range numbers.
My partner has already put 11k miles on his Bolt EUV since getting it and the tires look like they're actually holding up better than the ones on his previous ICE vehicle. I'm just guessing here, but maybe having a more even weight distribution helps with that. Now yeah, I've seen on Tesla forums that some Tesla owners have had issues with their tires getting chewed up rather quickly, but that may just be a Tesla thing.
But if you actually want to breathe cleaner air and not have all the health problems from dirty air caused by automobiles you need to get away from automobiles and switch to walkable cities in public transit
People still hate walking, and lest you suggest those rental scooters are a good idea f
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It may depend somewhat on driving style too. EVs encourage the use of gentle regen braking, which in many cars is not enough to even turn on the brake lights. That reduces the wear on the tyres.
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EVs use blended brakes, so when only a small amount of braking force is used they rely entirely on regen. As a result, brake pads tend to last a very, very long time if you aren't the sort of driver that does a lot of hard braking.
When you press the brake pedal harder, the friction brakes engage to provide the extra stopping power that regen cannot produce. So they brake as well as an other car, using the same mechanism.
Additionally, most EVs don't coast like a fossil car does. Instead, when you lift off th
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Yeah, a bit like that. Obviously with engine braking you don't recover the energy, it just becomes waste heat like with friction brakes. Regen is also required to activate the brake lights if the amount of force exceeds a legal limit in the EU, which engine braking does not do.
Some EVs have a one pedal mode. Normally regen doesn't work below 2-3 kph, but with one pedal mode the brakes are engaged to bring the car to a complete stop. It's really nice, you don't need to use the brake at all except for emergen
Re:It won't do any good (Score:5, Insightful)
At least as far as emissions goes. Tire particulated puts out hundreds if not thousands of times more pollution at this point. When you go outside your breathing a little bits of tire. Google it. Or just ask yourself what happens to your tires as they wear down.
Tires and brake pads are a big component of particulate emissions, yes.
EVs make this worse because they burn through tires faster because of the extra weight and because they tend to use low resistance tires in order to reach their efficiency numbers and range numbers.
EVs produce about 20% more particulate emissions from their tires than gasoline-powered cars. But they also produce 75% less particulate emissions from brake pads because of regenerative braking.
It is also important to realize that particulate emission is short-lived and local. Much of it falls out of suspension within single-digit days, and it is mostly gone after about a month and a half. CO2 stays in the air until something removes it. So given a choice between particulate emissions and CO2 emissions, I'll take the former any day, because it mostly affects people who live in the densest cities, whereas CO2 affects everyone.
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EVs produce about 20% more particulate emissions from their tires than gasoline-powered cars. But they also produce 75% less particulate emissions from brake pads because of regenerative braking.
Most brake pads are now metallics with no asbestos, and are relatively harmless to breathe... compared anyway to tires. So that's frankly irrelevant.
It is also important to realize that particulate emission is short-lived and local.
50% of marine microplastics are tire dust. Tire dust is mostly plastic and has a lifespan of thousands of years if not exposed to UV. It is neither short-lived nor local.
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Weigh more than what? An F-150 or an Escalade?
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My model 3 is 300 lbs heavier than my larger vroom vroom.
Ymmv (hah!)
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I get that the massive battery sleds make EVs a bit heavy for their size class, but we've had things like Excursions and H2s on the streets so complaining about heavy EVs seems a little silly.
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