Do electric cars really emit more polluting particles?

Election periods are holy bread for lobbies. A moment when all means are allowed to influence public opinion, including spreading some fake news or hijacking some studies. This is what we can currently observe on the United States side. The electric car is one of the symbols of a sustained political war between the Biden camp and that of Trump.

Do not think that Europe is completely spared. Even if the European elections do not excite the crowds, opportunities exist to broadcast speeches of the same ilk.

“Electric cars emit more polluting particles”

How to react to this op-ed published on the Wall Street Journal of March 3, which announces that electric cars emit more polluting particles than recent thermal vehicles? This is the meteoric return of “clean fuel”. As if the Americans had already forgotten that the last time a manufacturer ventured into this terrain, it led to dieselgate, and therefore the forced acceleration towards electric.

THE New York Post took up the article, adding to the title: “ Study finds electric vehicles emit more toxic emissions and are more harmful to the environment than gasoline cars “.

It is a 2022 study from the company Emission Analytics which is exhumed for the occasion. The objective: to explain that electric cars, being heavier, wear out their tires more, which generates greater pollution than thermal models. The real conclusion of the article being: we must stop Biden's policy regarding electric cars. Here we are !

All this for tire particles?

Tires pollute, that’s a fact. Plane, metro, bus, truck, car or bicycle, all these means of transport emit polluting particles because of their tires. It's even ” the second source of marine plastic pollution, behind particles from laundry detergent », Confided to me Dominique Stempfel, the president of the union of tire professionals. According to him, one of the objectives of manufacturers is to replace current problematic materials with biodegradable materials in the future.

It is irrefutable, if a car “eats tires”, it is more polluting. However, is this a fault solely attributable to the electric car because of its excess weight? No ! Or else, you will have to prove to me that a 1 ton Dacia Spring consumes more tires than a Mercedes Class A AMG with a kéké that burns out at the wheel, than a Porsche 911 or a large Range Rover. The lifespan of a tire is not just a car issue, even less exclusively an electric one, several factors come into play: driving, tire quality and road infrastructure.

Another point draws attention to the seriousness of the study or its interpretation. It is mentioned that electric cars also consume more brakes due to their weight. A statement that will make all electric owners jump, as it has already been demonstrated that this argument is false. It's even the opposite thanks to regenerative braking.

Another English study highlighted this well last year, concluding that if electric cars had worn out their tires before hybrid or thermal models, they made up for it with low brake particle emissions and no tailpipe emissions.

Producing is polluting

It will certainly bear repeating, but the electric car is not the “perfect” solution. There is none. It is “the least bad alternative” available to us to continue to enjoy individual freedom to move. All human production will necessarily be a source of pollution, which can be more or less compensated or valued over its life cycle.

Don't be surprised, we will continue to see anti-EV publications or speeches. Affirming, on the basis of an lambda study, that electric cars pollute more because of its windshield washer fluidor that car batteries are thrown away every 5 years. The bigger it is, the more it's acceptable !