Are the particulate matter emissions of electric cars higher than those of internal combustion cars? Yes, and it’s dangerous
Airborne particulate matter, intangible dust, is defined as the most dangerous form of air pollution to human health, due to its ability to infiltrate organs and blood, causing heart and respiratory disease and premature death.
For this reason, governments have heavily incentivized the market to switch to electric cars to reduce air pollution and thus particulate emissions. However, a new review of the scientific literature suggests that electric vehicles may not reduce PM levels as well as expected due to their relatively high weight.
By analyzing the existing literature on non-tailpipe emissions of different vehicle categories, this review found that there is a positive relationship between weight and non-tailpipe PM emission factors. In addition, electric vehicles (EVs) were found to be 24% heavier than equivalent internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). As a result, total PM10 emissions from electric vehicles were equal to those of modern ICEVs, although these included those from engines.
PM2.5 emissions were found to be only 1-3% lower for electric vehicles compared to modern ICEVs. It can therefore be concluded that the increased uptake of electric vehicles is unlikely to have a large effect on PM levels. Non-tailpipe emissions already account for more than 90% of PM10 emissions and 85% of PM2.5 emissions from traffic. These percentages will continue to increase as exhaust standards improve and average vehicle weights increase. Future policy should therefore focus on setting standards for non-tailpipe emissions and encouraging weight reduction of all vehicles to significantly reduce PM emissions from traffic. However, if a weight policy is encouraged, the electric vehicle will not be the best solution, in favor of more modern ICEV engines or other solutions still under development. This makes even less sense the ban, voted by the European Parliament, on the sale of internal combustion cars from 2035.
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The article Are the particulate emissions of electric cars higher than those of internal combustion cars? Yes, and it's dangerous, it comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/le-emissioni-di-particolato-delle-auto-elettriche-sono-superiori-a-quelle-delle-auto-a-combustione-interna-si-ed-e-pericolso/ on Sun, 19 Feb 2023 09:00:54 +0000.