Do EVs 'Emit' More than Gas Cars??!!

It's wild tracking down where these claims come from. It's also wild that I go on Twitter and get worked up about what people say when the whole platform is designed explicitly to amplify arguments! Anyway, we know cars are adding a ton of microplastics to the environment, but the transition to EVs only increases that negligibly if at all, and we should focus on the problem itself rather than some vague hope that we can somehow force Americans to start riding bikes and taking mass transit as we transition away from gas-powered vehicles!!!

[hankschannel]

Additional Info:
1. Some people are taking from this that EVs actually "emit slightly more" than gas cars...that is only possibly true if you don't count gaseous emissions, which are the vast majority of emissions by mass.

2. I should have noted that the ocean is BIG so while the majority of microplastics appear to be from cars, we do not know how much impact they will have on ocean life.

3. A aerosol scientist in comments notes that tire particles are going to be WAY BIGGER than tail-pipe particles, and thus tail pipe particles will travel many kilometers while tire particles will mostly travel tens to hundreds of meters.

4. This video is not about mining or lifecycle analysis of EVs but there are lots of good videos about that! Check out "Are EVs really better for the climate?" from "Just have a think" which is a SUPER GOOD CHANNEL that cover lots of green tech stuff extremely well.

[akareject]

My takeaway from all of this is: the smallest car is a bike.

[Jake]

"Smallest car is a bike"

Unicycle-man has entered the chat

[MegaKiri]

I did a Master's thesis on this topic. First of all, really great job for 17 min video, you touched on most important points.
I wanted to add this:
- it's not just the tire emissions, there is also brake wear AND road wear! (asphalt)
- it's not just microplastics, there are also metals and other elements which are proven to increase prevalence of asthma and other diseases for people who leave near highways, especially toll booths (since there is lots of braking). And EZ pass helps with this! There is less asthma since it was widely adopted.
- you're right: the driving style matters a lot.
- and weight of the vehicle matters, too. There is one EV outlier: Tesla Cybertruck. It's twice as heavy as an average EV, so its emissions from tire and brake wear are significantly higher.
- the study mentioned European vehicles produce less emissions than US ones. And the reason is Americans unfortunately LOVE huge and heavy trucks.
All of these emissions (from tires, brakes, road wear and even pipe emissions for gas-powered vehicles) increase with the weight of the vehicle. And EVs are not even the biggest offenders. Most popular trucks in the US such as Ford F1 could weigh more than most EVs (except Cybertruck).

[jmac]

So the worst is a heavy diesel truck driving legally but aggressive, whilst blowing coal.. which is particulate

[ChumbisDilliams]

Adding a comment from a PhD in aerosol science (me) -- most of the particles resulting from the tailpipe, at least by number, and probably by mass, are going to be secondary. That means they take time and chemistry to form into actual particles. I doubt the tyre studies examine these at all (because it's relatively hard). But it's VERY FRUSTRATING to hear so much discussion of particulate emissions and not make this distinction. Particles of a few microns, like from mechanical wear on tires, can travel maybe a few 10's to 100's of meters on the wind. Particles around 0.1 micron can travel DOZENS OF KM on the wind on a very normal day. Even ignoring the fact that they form from gases that also travel long distance. The impact on health and air quality from these two things is a world of difference.

[Krueger]

I've been driving an EV for 5 years and I never knew I had so many problems with it until I talked to someone with an emotional support truck.

[johanedfors]

My main issue with electric vehicles is that the focus on them has just completely obfuscated better and more sustainable solutions. Cars are bad for so many other reasons than just emissions like noise pollution, congestion, wasting valuable land on parking lots, expensive maintenance, induced demand, etc. Expanding public transportation and promoting the use of smaller vehicles like bikes or electric bikes deals with both emissions, waste, microplastics and all the other issues that comes with cars, but that's just glossed over if the conversation is just about emissions of cars and not car infrastructure as well. It's kind of like recycling where the focus on recycling has made industries and people waste more plastic than they would have otherwise, and where a better solution is to just limit the use of plastic to prevent waste in the first place.

[kemerydunn]

Hank freaking out about Finnish names being so aesthetically pleasing was a high point of the video tbh

[sandhillfarmer]

My folks sure care a lot about coal carbon emissions when they’re talking about EVs, yet they don’t seem to want to shut coal plants down.

It’s similar to how they really care about wind turbines killing birds but think that the millions and millions of critters killed by oil spills and air pollution are just the price of progress.

[woirm]

The worst I’ve heard, from my step-grandfather-in-law: the batteries take up too much room in the back seat, and they roll all over the place!

[HelloDollies]

As a teacher, I love you showing your thinking and explaining your research process. I’d love some demos like this for Crashcourse and Crashcourse Kids. Showing kids HOW to think while resources is super important.

[wtfpwnzred]

I love that we get to watch fact checking in real time. This is a skill more people need to develop, including vetting sources

[finalcountdown]

Geniunely, as a teacher, I think this style of video is super helpful for students. Seeing real research in real time, note-taking, looking out for potential bias, potential mistakes in research, a little bit of math/graphics/charts, and drawing final conclusions. I think this is a great way to show how to properly research data!

[cathleenc]

You had a really good point about the VW with 500kg extra payload was on tires not designed for that weight. When car designers/manufacturers decide what tires to put on a car, the weight of the vehicle, and whether pr not it will be expected to carry extra weight (as might happen in a truck, van, or SUV) is one of the main considerations. All tires are not equal.

[PowerHouseProdigy]

So, the fact remains that the real green option is to live somewhere with solid public transport and never use a car again? Cool. The bucket list remains unchanged.

[YetAnotherAaron]

Re: tires, people also forgetting that the most popular vehicles in the US are Trucks and SUVs which are also heavy and hard on tires

[seanlannigan]

I love that you not only do the research, but teach you're viewers how to verify and validate sources. A skill that seems to have been lost on many, hence a huge spike in conspiracy theories. Great job as always! 👍

[adrianthoroughgood]

An important 3rd source of particulate matter that wasn’t considered in the study that Hank was reading is brakes. I found a literature review (summary of other studies) that found that the contribution of brakes to particulates is 2-3x higher than tyres. We’ve already established that aggressive driving massively boosts tyre particulates, so if we take it as a given that people should drive calmly, outside of emergency situations almost all EV braking is done via regen through the motor instead of using the friction brakes that cause the particulates. Usually the last bit when coming to a complete stop will be from the friction brakes, but this is a tiny part of the energy dissipation. I don’t have actual data on what % of the braking on a well driven EV is from the brakes but for the sake of argument a generous figure might be 20% (it’s probably lower than this). Taking the smaller end of the contribution of brake dust of 2:1 (67% brakes, 33% tyres), that gives the increase in total particulates from tyre on an EV of 20% * 33% = 7%. The decrease due to regen braking is 80% * 66% = 53%. So the overall saving by switching from ICE to EV is 46% (ignoring any tailpipe emissions). This is extrapolation and not a real result from an actual study designed to test this question specifically, but it’s clear that the saving on brake emissions dwarfs the extra from tyre emissions. EVs are less polluting to local air quality than even a modern gasoline powered car with well functioning tail pipe filters.

[WritingRyanEdel]

Really great video — I love how you showed us the challenge of the online research rabbit hole. Speaking personally as a stick shift driver, I can wholeheartedly attest that aggressiveness has a HUGE effect on tire wear. I try to be a boring driver, but my tires are far more likely to slip out and shed more particles on the days I'm late to work.

Now, electric vehicles certainly have more torque than my underpowered Kia Soul, but I see two major factors in favor of the EVs burning up *fewer* rubber particles:

Most people who by EVs care more about the environment than driving performance, so they tend to be less aggressive in their driving.

EVs have better traction control than a car like mine. The electric motors can more precisely tune to torque to the wheel to maximize traction, both with acceleration and during regenerative braking. Yes, my car has traction control and anti-lock brakes, but those functions are not going to be as precise as an electric motor equipped with precision speed and torque sensors. So the EV tires likely won't spin out or over-brake nearly as much as my car, even when compared tothe days I'm driving carefully.

Now, the EVs do have that battery weight you pointed out, so maybe that added battery weight would cancel those two effects, but it's like you said — we cannot extrapolate tire wear data from an internal combustion vehicle to tire wear on an EV. The EV drivetrain characteristics are far, far different from those of an IC car. Even my stick shift has very different characteristics from an automatic transmission — and there's no way that an extra 500 or 1, 000 pounds will completely outweigh the effects of aggressive versus patient driving styles.

So as an IC owner, I aim to keep my driving under 8, 000 miles per year. I don't drive much anyway, and I once calculated that it would take around ten years before the added cost of a hybrid would save me the same value in gasoline. (I was very broke back then.) Other calculations indicate that it takes somewhere in the ballpark of 50, 000 and 100, 000 miles before the greenhouse gas emissions from an IC car begin to exceed the environmental impacts of building massive EV batteries. In my eyes, a small EV is far better than any IC if you need to do a lot of driving, but limiting driving like I do means that my little Kia getting 27 mpg *might* have less environment over ten years than if I'd bought an EV or a hybrid. And I say *might* because I don't actually know. And that's part of what I like about this video. Hank, you're pointing out all the uncertainties that people need to look at. I get so tired of hearing blanket statements about environmental impacts (usually denial that there's a problem), and then having people use uncertainty as if it's evidence. I wish more people followed your example of allowing uncertainty to remain uncertain.