It’s a fact, electric cars emit less pollutants in the exhaust and are more virtuous for nature in the long term than a thermal car. On the other hand, and as a recent study by ADEME proves, electric cars emit almost as many fine particles as a diesel or petrol car. What’s fault ? To tires and brake abrasion.
It’s no longer a secret. Electric cars are far from having a zero impact on the environment, on the contrary. Blame it on the polluting extraction of the metals needed to manufacture the batteries. Nevertheless and past a certain mileage, the CO2 emissions released are amortizedand the electric car thus becomes greener than its gasoline or diesel equivalent, which will continue to burn fossil fuels throughout its life.
If electric cars emit fewer exhaust pollutants such as nitrogen oxide or carbon monoxide, difficult to say the same about fine particles. Indeed and as revealed by a new study by ADEME (Environment and Energy Management Agency), the emission of non-exhaust particles has exploded in France. “While particulate emissions from the exhaust have dropped very significantly with the generalization of particulate filters, those outside the exhaust from the abrasion of brakes, tires and road surfaces are becoming predominant and represent 59% of PM10 and PM2 in France. .5″, explains the organization.
As a reminder, these two categories group together particles with a diameter of less than 10 µm and 2.5 µm, the toxicity of suspended particles being essentially due to particles with a diameter of less than 10 µm, as specified by INSEE. If we believe the data published by ADEME, electric cars are illustrated with an emission of fine particles by braking much lower than those of thermal cars.
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Electric cars that emit as many fine particles as a diesel
However, they show much less rosy results for fine particles emitted by tires. “Since their mass is greater than their thermal equivalent and this is all the more true as the range of the electric vehicle is high, this impacts the width of the tires and therefore increases tire/road particulate emissions (61 and 47% of PHE MP10 ) and those resuspended (36 and 28% of PHE PM10)”.
In fact, ADEME concludes that we do not note no significant difference in total fine particle emissions Between “long-range electric vehicles and new thermal vehicles which emit almost no more particles in the exhaust”. Note that this is not the first study on the subject, the OECD having already warned that car tires and brakes will pollute more than exhaust gases by 2035. In recent months, some Tire manufacturers have already committed to offering less polluting tyres, such as Continental with this green tire designed with recycled water bottles, or Goodyear with its tires optimized precisely for electric cars.
