Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated 6 million tons of tire fragments. These tiny flakes of plastic, generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, eventually accumulate in the soil, in rivers and lakes, and even in our food. Researchers in South China recently found tire-derived chemicals in most human urine samples.
  • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
    132·
    17 days ago

    I call shenanigans on blaming EVs. Yes, they’re heavier, but pickups and trucks are even heavier, and pickups are currently far more widespread (in the US). If you want to single them out, you either include all heavy vehicles or at least five a reason we should be more concerned about those than about heavier vehicles

    • FireRetardant@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      17 days ago

      You know whats even heavier than a gas pickup? An electric pickup, which is the exact type of EV they are marketing in the US.

      • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        17 days ago

        True, but not many have sold yet. We still have a chance to get commuters out of trucks before they transition to EVs.

        But do you know what’s even heavier, by many times? Trucks. In the beginning of EV times, one level of misinformation was claiming increased road wear from heavier vehicles. I believe several red states used that to block EVs or to increase taxes well above ICE vehicles. Then people started realizing it was exponential by weight, and road wear is mostly trucks. The difference with EVs is vanishingly small.

        Im not saying it ts the same situation for tire wear, I’m saying it’s important to know. Heck, is. It even the weight? What about all that extra torque in EVs? Alternately, does modern traction control make a noticeable difference. It just seems lazy writing to highlight EVs as a problem here without covering more of the possibilities, one way or another

        • FireRetardant@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          17 days ago

          I view it more as highlighting that EVs don’t suddenly make a car ecofriendly. It is also easier to get the public to change their transportation than to expect a groccery store to suddenly get a rail spur for deliveries which is why i think they didn’t touch much on heavy trucking.

    • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      We should be “concerned” about cars in general. They’re an unsustainable scam based on the extreme privilege of destroying the planet.