Agree with almost everything you said here, EVs are definitely significantly cleaner than ice vehicles but you’re oversimplifying a little when it comes to brakes and tires. Some cheap evs are going to drum brakes but the vast majority of modern evs are using significantly larger brakes with softer pads than equivalent gas vehicles due to the acceleration offered by electric vehicles. Its possible that as time goes on and electric vehicles make up a bigger market share of economy cars this will change.
The bigger issue with clean EVs is the insane amount of rubber they use in their tires. I’m not sure where you’ve heard the tires on EVs are roughly equivalent to ICE, sue to the weight increase EVs use much bigger tires that wear down faster than gasoline vehicles and I’ve read a few studies about the possibility of these tires throwing more “marbles” or small pieces of rubber than their lighter ICE counterparts. All this not to mention the increased road maintenance required by doubling the weight of the average car in the last thirty has me concerned were trading toxic fumes for other forms of pollution.
I wouldn’t say Volkswagen ID cars (ID.3, ID.4, ID.Buzz), Audi Q4 e-tron are cheap cars but they’re using drum brakes. Drum brakes are actually more efficient since a pad isn’t rubbing against the plate, impeding efficiency. It’s also easier to integrate electronic parking brakes into the mechanism. I imagine other EV makers will follow suit if for no other reason than it saves money and weight.
As for tyre wear, I’ve already pointed to links from the RAC & Kwikfit who I trust know what they’re talking about. I suppose if you drove an EV like you just stole it you might suffer wear but I imagine most people don’t drive like that and actually drive their car anticipating the need for acceleration / deceleration to maximize regen. And that style of driving also happens to reduce wear on the tyres.
Agree with almost everything you said here, EVs are definitely significantly cleaner than ice vehicles but you’re oversimplifying a little when it comes to brakes and tires. Some cheap evs are going to drum brakes but the vast majority of modern evs are using significantly larger brakes with softer pads than equivalent gas vehicles due to the acceleration offered by electric vehicles. Its possible that as time goes on and electric vehicles make up a bigger market share of economy cars this will change.
The bigger issue with clean EVs is the insane amount of rubber they use in their tires. I’m not sure where you’ve heard the tires on EVs are roughly equivalent to ICE, sue to the weight increase EVs use much bigger tires that wear down faster than gasoline vehicles and I’ve read a few studies about the possibility of these tires throwing more “marbles” or small pieces of rubber than their lighter ICE counterparts. All this not to mention the increased road maintenance required by doubling the weight of the average car in the last thirty has me concerned were trading toxic fumes for other forms of pollution.
I wouldn’t say Volkswagen ID cars (ID.3, ID.4, ID.Buzz), Audi Q4 e-tron are cheap cars but they’re using drum brakes. Drum brakes are actually more efficient since a pad isn’t rubbing against the plate, impeding efficiency. It’s also easier to integrate electronic parking brakes into the mechanism. I imagine other EV makers will follow suit if for no other reason than it saves money and weight.
As for tyre wear, I’ve already pointed to links from the RAC & Kwikfit who I trust know what they’re talking about. I suppose if you drove an EV like you just stole it you might suffer wear but I imagine most people don’t drive like that and actually drive their car anticipating the need for acceleration / deceleration to maximize regen. And that style of driving also happens to reduce wear on the tyres.