A recent article in the Wall Street Journal has brought attention to a study released in 2022 stating that electric cars release more toxic emissions in the air than gas vehicles.
According to a study released by Emission Analytics two years ago, newer electric vehicles release more toxic particles and are worse for the environment than gas-powered cars. The report, after analyzing hundreds of new tires, concluded that “comparing real-world tailpipe particulate mass emissions to tire wear emissions” in everyday driving equates to brakes and tires releasing 1,850 times more particulate matter than modern tailpipes that use filters that reduce emissions.
The New York Post reported that most vehicle-related pollution comes from tire wear today. And since electric vehicles, on average, are 30% heavier than regular cars, the brakes and tires on the electric vehicles wear down quicker than the ones on standard cars.
The Biden administration has mandated that two-thirds of new cars in the states be all-electric by 2032.
“You have a tradeoff. At the moment, the political agenda is very strong towards climate change reduction. EVs do deliver about a 50% reduction in CO2 — that [affects] climate change,” Nick Molden, the founder and CEO of Emissions Analytics, told The New York Post
. “But you have this downside of EVs that increases particle pollution. Air pollution is about what we breathe and the health effects.”Emission Analytics also stated that there is an important difference between tire and tailpipe particle emissions. The emissions from a regular car reportedly go straight to soil and water. But, with electric vehicles, the emissions are suspended in the air for a period, negatively affecting the air quality.
Molden offered a solution. He stated that “the best first thing” to do is to “change the recipe, minimize the number of toxic chemicals in the tires — then you got the best of both worlds.”