The California agency conducted a study on the comparative pollution contributed by gas-powered versus electric cars using an unrealistic assumption about how much the subject vehicles weigh to purportedly claim that a plan to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035 would reduce pollution.
In modern gas-powered cars, tailpipe emissions account for only 1% of all direct toxic matter emitted by the vehicle due to advances in filter technology. Today, the toxic impact of cars on the environment is due mostly to tire and brake wear, which, as many new EV owners are finding out, happens much faster in EVs than in gas-powered cars, according to a study by Emissions Analytics.
This is because EVs are generally much heavier than gas-powered and hybrid autos. However, when California designed a study to justify its plan to ban gas-powered cars, it assumed that EVs and gas-powered cars had the same tire wear.
The sleight of hand was called out by some in the public and in an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal. However, the California agency that did the study refused to take into consideration the reality of faster EV tire-wear. Instead, California claimed that future EVs would not weigh more than gas cars due to improvements in component manufacturing, though it did not give specifics to back up its forecast.
California’s false assumption was backed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which also conducted its own study that failed to consider the different tire and brake wear for the various classes of cars.
As the WSJ op-ed points out, that ambiguity is because of the physical limitations of the heavy metal batteries used in EVs, which store energy far less efficiently than liquid fuels. Thus, the op-ed predicts that electric cars will only get heavier as manufacturers make the batteries bigger for greater range.
But as Nick Molden, the founder and CEO of Emissions Analytics, told the New York Post, there is a difference between what is considered a toxic emission and CO2, which some claim is a driver of climate change. Molden said that EVs cut back on CO2 emissions by about 50% over gas-powered cars.
California’s plan amounts to an acceptance of a higher amount of toxic pollution in the air, food, and soil in exchange for lowering the CO2 that is blamed for climate change.
“A lot of it [chemicals] goes into the soil and water, affecting animals and fish. And we then go and eat the animals and fish, so we are ingesting tire pollution,” Molden told the Post. “Tires are made up of a lot of nasty chemicals.”
Molden suggested reformulating what goes into the synthetic rubber used on modern tires in order to get “the best of both worlds.”
