Just when I thought I was running out of reasons to dump on EVs, they come up with the goods once again. Terrible range, battery fires, mowing down blind people, enslaving African kiddies, poisoning Chinese kiddies, ripping off Western taxpayers… is there anything good about these monstrosities?
I mean, maybe the tyres are ok?
Think again.
Tyre-makers are under pressure to almost literally reinvent the wheel as regulators turn their scrutiny to tyre pollution that is set to surge with the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) and threatens to undermine those cars’ green credentials.
As if the horrific pollution involved in the manufacture of middle-class smugmobiles wasn’t bad enough, now they’re churning out even more deadly chemicals to poison marine life.
When tyres make contact with the road, tiny particles are abraded and emitted […]
Emerging research is showing the toxicity of tyres, which on average contain about 200 components and chemicals, often derived from crude oil.
While critics say tyres contain many toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, so far there is only really consensus around one – 6PPD, an antioxidant and antiozonant found in all tyres that reduces cracking.
The degraded form of 6PPD emitted from tyre pollution is lethal to some fish and has been detected in human urine in South China.
Developed during the Korean War, research shows that when 6PPD reacts with oxygen or ozone it forms 6PPD-quinone, which has been blamed for mass deaths of Coho salmon off the U.S. West Coast.
Californian regulators say 6PPD’s impact on human health is unclear, but are finalising documents that could require tyre manufacturers to analyse safer alternatives.
The tyre industry said finding a replacement for 6PPD is hard because any new chemical must prevent tyres degrading and cracking without affecting other attributes.
But, I hear the fart-smelling EV drivers whine, petrol cars use tyres, too!
This is true, but once again, the issue is the monstrous weight of the benighted EVs.
The extra weight of EVs linked to their batteries means this little-discussed form of pollution – from an estimated 2 billion tyres produced globally every year – is becoming a bigger problem.
Petrol cars produce tyre pollution, yes — but EVs produce even more. So, if we achieve the Green nirvana of totally replacing petrol cars with EVs, we’ll just be swapping one suite of pollution with another, possibly far worse, one.
Data provided to Reuters by Emissions Analytics shows new tyres developed so far are unlikely to solve the problem.
For example, while tests carried out on Continental bicycle tyres made using dandelions show a 24.5% drop in carcinogenic aromatics – which help cars hug the road – the chemicals in the particles they emit are similarly toxic overall, [Nick Molden, CEO of British-based testing specialist Emissions Analytics] said.
“They are just differently bad,” he added.
Reuters
Whereas, the more we learn about EVs, the more it becomes apparent that they’re just all bad.