Rising microplastics in seas puts pressure on tyre industry | tires produce 78% of all microplastics on Earth by weight
Rising microplastics in seas puts pressure on tyre industry | tires produce 78% of all microplastics on Earth by weight
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One elephant in the room is the fact that electric vehicles can wear out tyres up to 50% faster than their conventional counterparts, due to being heavier.
There is a very long list of problems with cars that get worse with weight. Yet, people insist on driving land-blimps.
It increases every single consumable in the car. Fuel, brakes, tyres, filters, oil, fluids, bearings, driveshafts, suspension... everything. It also puts additional wear on the roads they drive on, with an exponential relationship.
It also makes them far more dangerous. Worse cornering and braking, and an exponentially greater impact force when they hit something.
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Nitpick: The relationship between vehicle weight and road damage is a quartic (e.g. x to the power of 4), not an exponential
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I used to be a vol firefighter. If it's a heavy EV vs a regular weight car the EV will cause more damage and increase the risk of death/entrapment compared to normal crashes. You can't cut open elecric cars like normal ones to rescue people or you'll get electrocuted so that slows everything down.
There are response guides tesla puts out on their site to help us prepare for what a scene involving a tesla would entail. If I remember right like 8,000 gallons of water to keep the battery stable. Our tanker holds 2k. How many highways have hydrants? None that I can think of.
So we're talking about deadlier crashes while also having to arrange water resources like we would for a structure fire. For any significant crash involving EVs
I want to like electric vehicles but it seems like all it's going to do is make firefighters' lives hell for the next few decades
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Wow the water thing seems nuts. I just had a look at one of the guides. Do not submerge, but use large amounts of water to cool the battery compartment.
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There are response guides tesla puts out on their site to help us prepare for what a scene involving a tesla would entail. If I remember right like 8,000 gallons of water to keep the battery stable.
Keep in mind they make those numbers based off liability, not science. Those guides are meant to legally cover Tesla's ass, not provide actual useful information.
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The good news is that they found that boiling water eliminates 90% of microplastics. In a few years the oceans should be about the right temperature.
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Let's boiling tires !
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Eliminates them how? Do they break down and if so what do they break down into? I'm genuinely curious.
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"Eliminates" is a bit misleading. Calcium carbonate in the water traps the particles, some in the layer that builds up in the pot, the rest can be filtered out easier because the resulting particles are bigger.
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I honestly don’t know the science behind it. It has just been in the news the last week or so.
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Is natural rubber a plastic?
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Tires aren't made exclusively of natural rubber, they contain synthetic polymers among other things.
Additionally, by vulcanizing the rubber, three-dimensional chemical bonds resembling those found in synthetic plastics are created to harden the material.
So the end product is not really "natural" or "rubber" anymore.
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No worries companies Exxon has taken the lead for you!
"It's not our fault, it's the publics fault for using wheels!"
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Well I'm waiting on those airless tires with printable treads. It is really inefficient that we rely on tires that are garbage as soon as you hit a nail.
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There are solid tyres available for forklifts and such which could negate the problem you are mentioning. But the issue is the more the rubber the more energy it consumes. There is no way around it. It’s rubber inherent property. It is precisely why it’s used as it softens the ride by sapping energy obtained by unevenness of the road.
The other reason is heat. Since it saps away the energy, it manifests as heat inside the tyre and since it’s a poor conductor of heat it can’t dissipate it away fast and if it gets hot enough, tyre comes apart. So due to this you can see it is only limited to forklift speeds of 10-15 mph.
Believe me when I say, dealing with rubber is a can of worms with material modeling to manufacturing and maximizing performance of it.
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Patches work just fine, and as a printing enthusiast, printable treads just sound terrible.
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(Disclaimer: I'm a car guy, but I'm not here to argue about the necessity of reducing car traffic - I want fewer people on the road too!)
Clearly we're not going to get everyone out of their cars overnight, or even in the next 20 years. Besides the obvious things like getting a smaller car and using the car less in general, what can the average Joe do today?
The article says Michelin has the lowest rates of abrasion and I have no problem buying Michelin as I already buy high-end tires for peace of mind, but given that the statement comes from themselves, is there any research to verify it?
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Uhh I have an idea! Let's switch to cardboard tyres
49 comments
If only there was a way to move goods across a country that used steel wheels and renewable energy
I'm guessing you mean an army of people in wheelchairs?
Even wheelchairs have tyres - so first things first, ban all wheelchairs.
Wow are you talking cybertrucks with spiked stainless©️ steel wheels??
You have seen the state of rail cargo in the US recently? How many more cases of East Palestine do you need?
That's kinda their point. We have at least a partial solution, but the infrastructure is so under-maintained that it isn't up to the task. If we update the infrastructure, it should be safer than using semis, and produce less pollution.
Germany has a similar problem with it's main railroad service provider being a profit oriented company. Railroads don't necessarily make money or turn a profit. Instead they protect from damages by other means of transportation. That's my take on the matter, I'm sure I left many points unaccounted for