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Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics, Study Finds
(www.thedrive.com)
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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Fuck Cars
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EVs are also a major improvement for the microdust emitted by breaks, as they mainly use the motor for breaking.
For moderate braking at higher speeds sure, but not for your causal stoppages at intersections or heavier braking events.
I rarely ever use the brakes, even in the city -- I've become accustomed to letting off the gas at the correct distance for the regenerative braking to bring the car to a stop at the line. There's a good chance I might not replace the brakes for 10+ years.
Even more to this, regen breaking is only really limited by amount of current the battery pack can charge at (hence why regen sucks on plug-in hybrids with their little battery). As battery chemistry gets faster charging, regen breaking will get more and more powerful. With those solid state batteries some manufacturers are working on, you might not even need friction breaks on the car at all.
Tire dust though, evs solve nothing and are actually somewhat worse. They tend to have a lot more torque, and are currently somewhat heavier than an equivalent ICE car. Materials science will probably be able to give us incrementally less toxic tire dust, but only if there's pressure to invest in R&D.