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Comment by chewz | Hacker News Reader

> If we're talking about direct air pollution in cities I agree.

What about PM2.5? Do EVs do not use breaks and tires?

Tyres yes, brakes not so much. The brakes are needed only to come to a complete stop, most normal braking is handled by running the motor as a generator to dump the energy back into the battery.

Regenerative braking cuts these down a lot.

I sometimes wish people who make this argument would go sit in a sealed room with a running electrical car and then a running petrol or diesel car and tell me which one was the better experience.

I think the argument here though is sit in the car with the vehicle's emissions from non-existent to end of life.

I do agree that point-source emissions of the electricity being generated is a big advantage. Nothing sucks more than being exposed to vehicle emissions in traffic/city/etc.

Well, to be fair, you need to be sitting in the room during the production of the battery, too ;-)

The pollution from the production of the battery, the steel and the aluminium can occur well away from major population centres. They are centralised and immobile so there is a much better chance that in the future they can utilise more efficient methods or at least capture some of their emissions.

As long as you also sit beside the smelter that makes the metal for the engine, drive shaft and gearing.

Sure. I'd even allow that you could share that experience with all the steel being smelted for both cars.

I would prefer sitting in a sealed room with my bike.. Always something to tinker with.

brakes ? rarely

I am sure that tires (in the city where is majority of cars electric) will not cause PM2.5 mayhem :)

Also VW prepares this technology : https://www.motor1.com/news/346653/brake-dust-particle-filte...

Tires generate a lot more particulate matter than brakes do, like 95% or so.

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