Tyres create more pollution than exhaust emissions!

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Have to say that I see more burst tyres at the side of the road than exhausts or engines.
 
F1 take note.

It's becoming more difficult to even pretend to justify the hundreds of tyres it uses each race weekend, especially when you take manufacturing and transporting them into account.
 
"Using a popular family hatchback running on brand new, correctly inflated tyres, we found that the car emitted 5.8 grams per kilometer of particles."

5.8g/km over the life of 4 tyres, say 40,000km = 58Kg per tyre. That seems a very heavy tread - or have I got my maths wrong?
 
Dickie Fix said:
"Using a popular family hatchback running on brand new, correctly inflated tyres, we found that the car emitted 5.8 grams per kilometer of particles."

5.8g/km over the life of 4 tyres, say 40,000km = 58Kg per tyre. That seems a very heavy tread - or have I got my maths wrong?
Click to expand...
Something is definitely awry with their figures, maybe a decimal place error? At 5.8g/km every shred of the entire tyre would have been used up within 5-10,000 miles. I can’t believe that a tyre loses more more than a couple of kilos of rubber over its life.
 
Said this in an automotive industry emissions meeting a couple of decades ago and got looked upon as some sort of idiot...

As for the comments above on EVs vs urban air quality or CO2; The use of EVs, produces CO2 emissions whilst we are using carbon-based electrical energy production. I don't know off hand what the CO2/km is for typical EVs, but if I had to guess I'd say right now they make as much CO2 in powerstation as ICEVs make at the tailpipe. Similarly CO2 is produced during the manufacturing and deployment/distribution of EVs and the required supporting infrastructure as of course it is during the oil production etc..

Operating EVs in towns and cities should improve urban air quality, mainly from a NOx emissions perspective if one assumes that ICE exhaust aftertreatment systems are ineffective. The particulates EVs produce are from tyres and brakes and as well as being carbon, may also contain heavy metals. The good news is that typically these particulates are much bigger than those emitted from ICE vehicles and so are less damaging and more easily managed/ejected by the lungs.

The main drivers for EVs are socio-political and the 'need' to ween us off oil as a transport fuel while it's still the most viable current option.

As for tyre particulates: 8mm for new tread depth, 2mm at end of life after say 20,000km. Typical tyre diameter nominally 650mm. Not too hard to do a few sums and come up with 'wet finger in the air' number. That said not all of the material ends up in the air we breath, a good chunk of it ends up in the ground water.
 
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Flying cars!!! it will solve all the worlds problems .....
 
Coronavirus!!! it will solve all the worlds problems .....
FIFY ;)

But not for everyone, apparently.
But it is said that you can't please all of the people all of the time.
 
Dickie Fix said:
"Using a popular family hatchback running on brand new, correctly inflated tyres, we found that the car emitted 5.8 grams per kilometer of particles."

5.8g/km over the life of 4 tyres, say 40,000km = 58Kg per tyre. That seems a very heavy tread - or have I got my maths wrong?
Click to expand...

The report goes on about Non-Exhaust Emissions (NEE) being particles released into the air from brake wear, tyre wear, road surface wear and resuspension of road dust during on-road vehicle usage so it is not just the tyres. Judging by the amount of brake dust on the wheels they probably produce more 'emissions' than the tyres.

If they fixed some of the pot holes and pot craters littering our roads it might help reduce the amount of particles from road wear and road dust.
 
Whatever the quantification of the problem, there is no doubt that it is going to be a problem that gets more attention. EV's are no better and probably worse as they weigh considerably more than IC cars and accelerate faster which must cause more tyre wear. I wonder how long it will,be before the 2 tonne plus monster EV's attract some punitive taxation. I won't be soon enough for me.
 
Dickie Fix said:
"Using a popular family hatchback running on brand new, correctly inflated tyres, we found that the car emitted 5.8 grams per kilometer of particles."

5.8g/km over the life of 4 tyres, say 40,000km = 58Kg per tyre. That seems a very heavy tread - or have I got my maths wrong?
Click to expand...
A tyre that fits a family hatchback wouldn't even weigh 58kg. My guess is a typical hatchback tyre weighs no more than 10kg all in.
 
Well, I've had a little go at some numbers and think the report linked may be somewhat 'heavy', by an order of magnitude or so.

Nominal tyre diameter: 0.65m
Nominal tyre width : 0.2m
Total 'groove' width: 0.05m
Useable tread depth : 0.006m
Total volume of useable tread: 3.142 x 0.65 x (0.2-0.05) x 0.006 = 0.00184m^3 or 1.8L
Density of rubber: 0.9kg/L
Total mass of useable tread : 1.8 x 0.9 = 1.65kg/tyre or 6.6kg/car or 6600g
Tyre life distance: 20000km
Tyre particulate emissions: 6600/20000 = 0.33g/km
Emissions limit for exhaust particulates: 4.5mg/km or 0.0045g/km
Emission Standards: Europe: Cars and Light Trucks

So my numbers would suggest that tyres emitt/produce 73x more particulate than is allowed to come from the tailpipe. Not quite the headline the report authors were looking for I guess, but still a VERY significant contributor to air pollution.
 
^ and...?

Driving a car on the road using a customised driving cycle and expecting the exhaust emissions to be at the same levels as those specified for a different driving cycle is somewhat naive and at best optimistic. The manufacturers build cars to meet the specified standards. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but that's what they do. To be honest, I'm rather surprised that Emissions Analytics did not even seem to simulate the NEDC on the road to see if they could correlate to lab results. That said, I would not have been surprised to see discrepancies even if they had done this.
 
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I find them high on detail but lacking in specifics making it difficult to put their findings into context?
 
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