The “pollute more from the tires being heavier” is a myth, by the way. There was an article that circulated claiming this, but they never actually measured the tire pollution of electric cars, just extrapolated from ICE cars with really terrible and ultimately false arguments. Electric cars tend to use low rolling resistance tires (potentially less wear… if you’re experiencing less rolling resistance, that means less energy ends up being used to produce wear, so less wear occurs… in part due to geometric effects and partly due to composition of the tires). Electric cars are also fairly comparable in curb weight due to massive weight reductions elsewhere, plus improved traction control (and the more gentle regenerative braking) means less wheel slippage and wear. And it assumes ICE cars are operating at full emissions-control mode which is also untrue especially on startup or in cold weather or if using diesel. It also assumes tire wear mass is all minute particles of the same problematic effects of ICE exhaust particles, which is a bad assumption for multiple reasons (for one, it ignores empirical measurements of particle sizes), and it ignores gaseous emissions entirely in the calculation, many of which are very problematic like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides of various types, components of gasoline such as benzene and xylene and toluene, ozone (a major component of smog), etc. It also ignores the near absence of break wear in electric cars, thus the absence of silica dust (or iron oxide dust, or whatever the brakes and the rotors are made of, etc).
> Electric cars are also fairly comparable in curb weight due to massive weight reductions elsewhere,
Seriously, this meme needs to die. A Tesla model 3 is the same weight as a BMW 340, and the model 3 is hundreds of pounds lighter than an SUV like the BMW X3.
Batteries are heavy, but so are gas engines & transmissions.
Sure, but its also 500-1200lbs heavier than a Civic depending on the trims of each which has very similar utility to an M3 and is much closer in TCO to a model 3 than a 340 or an X3 is.
We shouldn't be having our cake and eating it too by saying "electric cars are more expensive but the TCO so much lower than ICE that its worth it" and then make comparisons to ICE vehicles at the MSRP of the EV.
The point is that ICE cars and electric cars are comparable in weight. There are some ICE cars lighter than an electric car, and some ICE cars heavier than an electric car. Some of that is just due to the fact that electric cars are new, and haven't moved into the "ultra light sporty car" segment with the civic or Miata.
The point is you don't see a BMW go down the road and freak out about how heavy it is. But there is this meme in everyone's mind that EV's tire polution is much much worse than ICE because EVs are much much heavier. They aren't.
> The point is that ICE cars and electric cars are comparable in weight.
My point is that this just isn't true in the general sense. I didn't choose the Civic because its an "ultra light sporty car" I chose it because it's in a very similar class of car to the model 3 and moves a lot of units, but you could look at the Camry, Corolla, Accord, or Altima and see that the heaviest trims of all 5 (including hybrids) all weigh less than the lightest model 3 currently available.
Those 5 cars cover every sedan on the top 25 sales list other than the Model 3. I'm sure there are tons of luxury sedans that weigh more than the Model 3, but their total number of units is much smaller than any of the 6 cars we're talking about and their TCO is massively higher as well. So if you weigh the average comparable vehicle on the road the Model 3 will weigh more, and the Model 3 is one of the lightest 250+ mile EVs! the Polestar 2 weighs 4400 lbs!
FWIW I agree that the tire pollution thing is a silly aspect to focus on when comparing EVs and ICE, especially considering a lot of people who believe the lie that it makes EVs worse overall are probably driving a mall crawler or bro-dozer that weighs 5000+ lbs.
It should be noted that weight has been dropping YoY and is expected to drop further when M3 gets a structural battery pack. Those drop the weight not only because there's now no longer a structure the battery is bolted to, it is the structure, but also because the weight drop lowers the batteries needed to get comparable range (further reducing weight).
Model Y is the first tesla vehicle with a structural pack.
I expect that other EV manufactures will eventually follow suit. Why wouldn't they? Less batteries and materials is a win win.
Unfortunately most of the benefits of structural battery packs haven't materialized yet based on the stats Tesla submitted to the EPA. The Austin Model Y is 25 lbs lighter but has 14kWh less capacity and 51 fewer miles of range. Part of this is probably the battery chemistry being used in the current 4680 cells and as the chemistry improves they may catch back up in range to the non-structural 2170 packs but they have a really really long way to go before they get to the range increase and weight decrease they promised at battery day. That or some aspect of the EPA numbers are massively wrong but I feel like we would have heard from Elon about that by now.
Sure, and the Civic Type-R has a 0.8 second faster 0-60 than an SR+ M3 while weighing 550 lbs less and beats the Model 3 Performance at Nurburgring by over a minute while weighing over 1000 lbs less. All while having a $10k-20k lower MSRP. the Type-R is only 15 seconds behind a model S plaid at nurburgring which is more than 50% heavier.
But beyond that, if the only thing you ever try to compare is 0-60 performance then EVs always have an upper hand because it is one of their primary strengths, and that's great! But cars are much, much more than their 0-60 (as evidenced by a fwd car with a 5.0s trouncing an awd car with 3.1s on the track) and for many people TCO, utility, creature comforts, reliability, etc. are more important comparisons.
The cheapest model 3 on Tesla's website right now is $47k MSRP, the 2021 Type-R MSRP was $38k (there is no 2022) and the Performance Model 3 is $63k.
So my bad its $9k-$25k MSRP, not that the minutiae of pricing is that important for this comparison. It was just to note that Honda isn't winning on weight by spending a fortune on materials or manufacturing like if I had compared the Model 3 to some supercar.
> Electric cars tend to use low rolling resistance tires (potentially less wear… if you’re experiencing less rolling resistance, that means less energy ends up being used to produce wear, so less wear occurs… in part due to geometric effects and partly due to composition of the tires). Electric cars are also fairly comparable in curb weight due to massive weight reductions elsewhere, plus improved traction control (and the more gentle regenerative braking) means less wheel slippage and wear.
Do we need to go this deep into our analysis? I would think ((pi*radius^2)-(pi*(radius-tread_depth)^2))*width/miles would tell us pretty much everything we need to know about tire emissions, and most EV owners in my experience will acknowledge spending much more on tires for the same # of miles or spending the same for a good bit less # of miles. I'm not sure what the dimensional differences are on your average EV tire purchase versus your average ICE tire purchase, but if we look at model 3 base tires vs civic touring tires (biggest stock civic tire sold):
M3: 235/45R18 10/32 (Primacy MXM4)
Civic: 235/40R18 9/32 (Eagle Sport A/S)
so at least as far as stock tires M3 should have more total tread than a similarly sized/similar TCO vehicle given the larger aspect ratio and deeper tread depth. Unfortunately I can't find any non-anecdotal data on how many miles they would each get.
Of course I agree with pretty much everything you said but I do think tires are an important conversation to have around EVs, particularly when prices come down and budget conscious buyers start putting cheap, loud, fast wearing tires on their EVs.
I was including all three of those in the "per mile" piece of the equation since we are looking at products in aggregate. If EVs generally cause people to accelerate harder than if they bought an equivalent ICE then that would be reflected in the reduced tire life and if chosen tire compound decreases wear then that would be reflected as well.
That said tire compound could be more or less dense or have more or less of an effect on the environment per unit so that wouldn't be captured, and low torque EVs would most likely have less wear/mile so the categorization of just EV vs ICE might be too broad.
In short, it is misinformation.